1/ A few thoughts following up on my quickie post yesterday on the Rod Rosenstein (RR) story in the NYT. lawfareblog.com/quick-notes-ro…
2/ “I never pursued or authorized recording the President and any suggestion that I have ever advocated for the removal of the President is absolutely false,” says Rosenstein in his second, and very carefully worded, denial.
3/ Especially given that this is RR’s second shot at denial, the weasel-words, and what he didn’t say, stand out pretty clearly.
4/ RR says he never “pursued or authorized” recording POTUS. NYT claimed he “suggested” the idea. RR did not deny that. Nor did he claim that he suggested a recording of POTUS in jest. I thus read RR as conceding here that he did suggest it but never pursued or authorized it
5/ RR's 25th Amendment also revealing. He denies “any suggestion” that he “advocated for the removal of the President.” NYT claim was that RR “discussed” and “brought up” the 25th Am. idea. RR did not deny these claims, which fall short of “advocacy.” So I think they are true.
6/ In sum, RR had two shots to deny what the NYT reported and did not. Both denials fall short of what the NYT said he said and did.
7/ That said, it is very hard to know how seriously RR made these claims. I am not sure one would be able to tell that one way or the other from the McCabe memos, which are the main (and apparently initial) source for the NYT story.
8/ McCabe recorded RR’s representations contemporaneously, at a time when he had no reason to know how the memos would be used, and no reason to think he might be adversarial w/ RR. That lends memos credibility about the matter recorded.
9/ McCabe memos likely leaked by someone seeking to discredit RR and/or help Trump. That surely made the NYT (not a pro-Trump outlet) super-careful, which is why it used “suggested,” “discussed,” “brought up,” not "authorized" or "pursued," and why it stands by its reporting. END
