Pierce: The New York Times' Rosenstein Story Is Just a Game of Telephone

[mcar]

The New York Times' Rosenstein Story Is Just a Game of Telephone
There is some seriously wicked maneuvering going on here.

BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
SEP 21, 2018

On the whole, The New York Times is an essential publication. On occasion, however, it gets played like a $5 fiddle. Friday was one of those days.

Mr. Rosenstein was just two weeks into his job. He had begun overseeing the Russia investigation and played a key role in the president’s dismissal of Mr. Comey by writing a memo critical of his handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. But Mr. Rosenstein was caught off guard when Mr. Trump cited the memo in the firing, and he began telling people that he feared he had been used.

Mr. Rosenstein made the remarks about secretly recording Mr. Trump and about the 25th Amendment in meetings and conversations with other Justice Department and F.B.I. officials. Several people described the episodes, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. The people were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials, including Andrew G. McCabe, then the acting bureau director, that documented Mr. Rosenstein’s actions and comments.

If you were a mendacious, criminal president* with a lot to cover up and the walls closing in from all sides, isn't this exactly the story you'd want out there as an excuse to fire Rod Rosenstein and then appoint someone who would fire Robert Mueller? Isn't this exactly the kind of story that you would want out there in order to superheat the boilers of paranoia that drive your base, especially on the same day that you walked back your promise to feed the base declassified parchments from the Illuminati who run The Deep State? Isn't this exactly the kind of story you would want out there on the day the news breaks that your old personal lawyer is talking to Mueller's people about your campaign, and Russia, and god alone knows what else?

I mean, the only direct quote from any human being in this story is Rosenstein's denial. (Oh, and some quotes from the president* from a while back.) And "the people were briefed...on memos written by FBI officials" isn't sourcing. It's a game of telephone.

Isn't this exactly the kind of story you would want for Christmas, your birthday, or one of your several wedding anniversaries? In addition, Rod Rosenstein may be a "senior named official," but he doesn't have fck-all to do with the 25th amendment. That's only for Cabinet members and members of Congress. Why not ask the pastry chef, and, if he mentions the 25th, then attribute it to a "White House source close to the president*"? Holy hell, it isn't usually this obvious.

(NBC's Ken Dilanian has tweeted that a source in the meeting under discussion says that Rosenstein was "being sarcastic." There seems to be some confusion on that score, although The Washington Post's reporting also has Rosenstein being snarky about it.)

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a23365935/new-york-times-rod-rosenstein-25th-amendment-donald-trump/

[Eyeball_Kid]

1. Michael Schultz, a NYT reporter, was pushing the NYT story on MSNBC.

Schultz was ALSO the reporter who pushed the false story that the famous "44 questions" that Mueller wants to ask Trumpy in an interview had credibility. It never did, but Schultz kept pushing the lie well after it was revealed that the questions were actually made up by a member of TRUMPY'S LEGAL TEAM, not Mueller or anyone associated with Mueller.

[mcar]

3. The timing and spin on this are quite suspicious

[Cha]

2. KR!

[mcar]

4. Hey Cha!

What a week (don't we say that every week?)!

[Cha]

6. ..

mcar Mahalo for all you do!

[Scurrilous]

5. K&R