Rod Rosenstein has some super strange thoughts on leaks
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Washington (CNN)Late
Thursday night, seemingly unprompted, deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein -- he of the James Comey firing memo and the appointment of
Bob Mueller as special counsel in the Russia investigation -- put out a
very odd statement on just how terrible anonymously-sourced stories are.
Here it is in its entirety:
"Americans
should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed
to anonymous 'officials,' particularly when they do not identify the
country - let alone the branch or agency of government - with which the
alleged sources supposedly are affiliated. Americans should be skeptical
about anonymous allegations. The Department of Justice has a
long-standing policy to neither confirm or deny such allegations."
Er, what?
This statement is 62 words long but it really could have been just two: "Fake news."
Rosenstein,
according to CNN's Evan Perez, was not asked by the White House to
release the statement. But it comes directly from President Trump's
playbook: An attempt to discredit any negative stories that rely on
anonymous sourcing.
A quick word on that: Anonymous sourcing is not ideal. As a reporter, you always
try to get people to attach their names to pieces of information or
quotes they are providing you. But that isn't always possible --
particularly when you are dealing with negative information about the
President of the United States, like, say, that that he is under investigation
for obstruction of justice. Anonymous sourcing is an imperfect tool but
one that has helped expose all sorts of important stories over the
decades.
Trump seemed to take a
swipe at Rosenstein — anonymous leak statement notwithstanding — in a
Friday morning tweet. "I am being investigated for firing the FBI
Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,"
Trump tweeted.
The Rosenstein
statement isn't just strange because it seemingly came out of nowhere.
(My guess is what prompted it was back-to-back Washington Post stories
on Wednesday and Thursday about the obstruction of justice investigation and the fact that Jared Kushner's finances are now part of the special counsel investigation.)
The
oddest part of it is when Rosenstein warns people to be skeptical of
anonymous sources "particularly when they do not identify the country
... with which these alleged sources supposedly are affiliated."
Unless
I am misunderstanding Rosenstein, what he is suggesting is that some of
the stories that have been written of late using anonymous sources rely
on officials from foreign countries who might have ulterior motives --
like undermining Trump -- when they decide to share information. I
suppose that's technically possible but seems very, very far-fetched to
me. (Following Rosenstein's statement, the Post noted "US officials" had
told them about the investigation into Kushner's finances.)
If
Rosenstein suspects that sort of disinformation campaign from a foreign
government, I think he should tell us more about it as soon as
possible. As in, if a foreign government is actively leaking information
about the Russia investigation to US reporters for the express purpose
of disrupting Trump's presidency, that's a pretty big damn deal. Right?
The
rest of his statement is the standard sort of stuff that comes out of
the Trump White House regarding anonymous leaking. "Caution" is
necessary. "Skeptical" is the right view Americans should take. And so
on and so forth.
The message from
Rosenstein -- while oddly timed -- is clear: A lot of the stuff you see
on TV or read in the papers attributed to anonymous sources is wrong.
And the leakers likely have nefarious motives -- and might even be from
foreign countries!
That Rosenstein put out a statement at all is weird. That it was this statement is even weirder.
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