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?

Justin Sullivan Getty Images

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.)

Alex Wong Getty Images

And let's note that the Times reporters made a point of including the following, which reeks of this story being a deliberate plant by someone close to the president*, or someone like him.

Mr. Rosenstein also considered appointing as special counsel James M. Cole, himself a former deputy attorney general, three of the people said. Mr. Cole would have made an even richer target for Mr. Trump’s ire than has Mr. Mueller, a lifelong Republican: Mr. Cole served four years as the No. 2 in the Justice Department during the Obama administration and worked as a private lawyer representing one of Mrs. Clinton’s longtime confidants, Sidney Blumenthal. Mr. Cole and Mr. Rosenstein have known each other for years. Mr. Cole, who declined to comment, was Mr. Rosenstein’s supervisor early in his Justice Department career when he was prosecuting public corruption cases.

Oh, no! Sidney Blumenthal! Who has the garlic? Unclean! Unclean!

There is some seriously wicked maneuvering going on here and it will come to a bad end.

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Charles P. Pierce Charles P Pierce is the author of four books, most recently Idiot America, and has been a working journalist since 1976.

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