Cohen presented as meaning that the president 'directed' Cohen to lie. We now know that Mueller did not." On April 5, 2019, Leopold co-authored a story that was presented as an update to the January 2019 story. The April story referenced a 12-page memo submitted by Cohen's legal counsel to Congress that said President Trump "encouraged Cohen to lie and say all Moscow Tower project contacts ended as of January 31, 2016 using 'code' language." Subsequently, on April 18, 2019, the original Cohen report was updated to state that the "Mueller report found that Trump did not direct Michael Cohen to lie." Awards and achievements Leopold is an Emmy nominated producer, the recipient of the FOI Award from Investigative Reporters and Editors and a member of the team awarded the Tom Renner Award in 2018 from Investigative Reporters and Editors, and a member of the team named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. He was also a Pulitzer finalist in 2021 as one of the lead reporters on the FinCEN Files investigation, a collaboration between BuzzFeed News and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The FinCEN Files also won The Tom Renner award in 2021. Leopold was inducted into the National Freedom of Information Hall of Fame by the Newseum Institute in 2016. His stories have appeared three times on Project Censored's top-25 under-reported stories of the year: once in 2004, for a story he wrote about an alleged secret meeting Arnold Schwarzenegger had with Ken Lay prior to the film star's being elected Governor of California, for a story he wrote on Halliburton in 2005, and again in 2011 for a story he wrote on a controversial "spiritual fitness test" the Army required all of its enlisted soldiers. In 2008, Leopold received the Thomas Jefferson Award from the Military Religious Freedom Foundation. Bibliography News Junkie, 2006 (). References External links The Public Record Jason Leopold Interview on the podcast Love + Radio Jason Leopold - article list at SourceWatch 1969 births Living people American alternative journalists American investigative journalists American online journalists Al Jazeera people People from Beverly Hills, California