Did Rosenstein really “suggest” wearing a wire? Not likely
by digby
The New York Times has reported out some gossip from inside the Justice Department back in May of 2017 around the time of the Comey firing in which a meeting between former acting FBI director Andrew McCabe, Rod Rosenstein and others discussed the fact that Trump was a cretinous moron (my words not theirs). According to the Times, Rosenstein said he could talk to Kelly and Sessions about invoking the 25th Amendment declaring Trump incompetent and that he could wear a wire to record the president. Apparently, he was also upset about being used by the president to write that silly memo rationalizing the Comey firing which you have thought he could have seen coming a mile away.
All of this is based upon second and third-hand information from anonymous sources who say they saw notes of the meetings — no direct participants spoke either on or off the record. We don’t even know if any of them aside from McCabe (whose notes seem to be what some of these people are basing their gossip on) work in the Justice Department.
On the other hand, the Washington Post reports, (NBC confirmed as well) that their sources say the meeting took place but that Rosenstein was being sarcastic responding to McCabe by saying “what do you want me to do Andy, wear a wire?” which sounds a lot more plausible.
Nobody has reported on why Rosenstein would have said he would talk specifically to Kelly and Sessions about the 25th Amendment since Kelly at the time wasn’t the Chief of Staff but rather the Director of Homeland Security and both men were known to be loyal Trumpers even if Sessions had recently recused himself.
Let’s just say this is a very weird story.
The point of it is obviously to give Trump cause to fire Rosenstein, although I don’t know exactly how he can prove anything based upon a “failing New York Times” story. But Gabriel Sherman of Vanity Fair is reporting that this is former Fox News president and current White House communications director Bill Shine’s baby and he is planning to roll out a major “fire Rosenstein” propaganda campaign.
I would guess it’s also designed to take some of the pressure off the Kavanaugh confirmation scandal in order to keep the public from bearing down too hard and precipitating a move for him to withdraw the nomination.
I think we all know Trump is likely to fire Sessions and Rosenstein after the midterms no matter what. This might just be more building of the groundwork or they may have decided they need to push it up for other reasons having to do with the investigation. (That Manafort plea has got them reeling.)
Anyway, it looks as though the New York Times is likely being a pawn in their game. Of course it wouldn’t be the first time.
Update —
Emptywheel:
I’d like to point out something strongly suggested by the stories based on gossiping about Andrew McCabe memos. These stories portray what people not at a meeting that took place just after Comey’s firing think happened at the meeting based off hearing about memos memorializing them. From the WaPo’s far more responsible version of the story, we know that Lisa Page was also present at the meeting.
Another official at the meeting, then-FBI lawyer Lisa Page, wrote her own memo of the discussion which does not mention any talk of the 25th amendment, according to a second person who was familiar with her account.
And the WaPo’s version of the “wire” comment puts it in context, making it clear that Rosenstein was questioning how they could investigate the President.
That person said the wire comment came in response to McCabe’s own pushing for the Justice Department to open an investigation into the president. To that, Rosenstein responded with what this person described as a sarcastic comment along the lines of, “What do you want to do, Andy, wire the president?”
Now go back to earlier in the week, to the frothy right rehashing some texts Page and Peter Strzok sent, talking about opening an investigation into … someone, while Andrew McCabe was Acting Director. (Apologies for the Fox slurs about Page and Strzok.)
Text messages from disgraced FBI figures Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, discussing whether to open a “case” in a “formal chargeable way” after Director James Comey was fired, are under fresh scrutiny after Page told congressional investigators there was no evidence of Russian collusion at the time, according to three congressional sources.
Two hours after Comey’s termination became public on May 9, 2017, Strzok, a now-former FBI agent, texted Page, his then-colleague and lover: “We need to open the case we’ve been waiting on now while Andy is acting.”
“Andy” is a reference to then-Deputy Director Andrew McCabe who temporarily took over the bureau until Christopher Wray was confirmed as director in August 2017.
Page, a former FBI attorney, replied to Strzok: “We need to lock in (redacted). In a formal chargeable way. Soon.”
Strzok concurred. “I agree. I’ve been pushing and I’ll reemphasize with Bill,” believed to be Bill Priestap, the head of the FBI’s counterintelligence division.
Finally, here’s the WaPo version of Michael Bromwich’s description of the memos.
McCabe’s lawyer, Michael Bromwich, said in a statement that his client “drafted memos to memorialize significant discussions he had with high level officials and preserved them so he would have an accurate, contemporaneous record of those discussions. When he was interviewed by the special counsel more than a year ago, he gave all of his memos — classified and unclassified — to the special counsel’s office. A set of those memos remained at the FBI at the time of his departure in late January 2018. He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.”
These are “significant memos” and went right to Mueller when he was appointed. The kind of memos that might back investigative decisions, such as whether to open an investigation into the President.
So what the NYT spin of the story is about is suggesting that at the moment when DOJ opened an investigation into the President, the guy who opened it was “acting erratically.” Presumably based off the third-hand opinions of people like Jim Jordan, who knows a bit about acting erratically. It’s also about whether a discussion of removing the President took place at the same meeting where a discussion of investigating him did.
Likely, the messages are muddled, because they always are when getting laundered through Jim Jordan’s feverish little mind.