Pierce: For Now, We'll Trust That Rod Rosenstein Is Playing the President* Like a Five-Cent Violin

[babylonsister]

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a20854643/rosenstein-trump-meeting-wray/

For Now, We'll Trust That Rod Rosenstein Is Playing the President* Like a Five-Cent Violin
The indications are the Deputy AG is a crafty bureaucrat.
By Charles P. Pierce
May 21, 2018


Every day that Robert Mueller and his tunnel rats continue to labor under the foul mire that is this administration* is a day when the White House loses. Every day in which Mueller goes home at night still in the same job is a day when the president* is one day closer to possibly losing his.

So it’s easy to read too much into the meeting late Monday afternoon when deputy AG Rod Rosenstein and FBI director Chris Wray dropped by the White House to talk to the president* in response to the latest administration* fever dream about how the previous administration had gone all Gordon Liddy on the Trump campaign—and just because that campaign was lousy with crooks, mountebanks, and influence-pedding in a dozen different languages.

So, Rosenstein and Wray dropped by and, when the meeting was over, the three principals issued a very curious statement. It stated that the DOJ’s inspector-general will expand his ongoing investigation to include “tactics” employed by the FBI in its investigation of the Trump campaign. Further:

"It was also agreed that White House Chief of Staff Kelly will immediately set up a meeting with the FBI, DOJ, and DNI together with congressional leaders to review highly classified and other information they have requested."

Nobody seems to know what that second part means. The intelligence community would be out of its mind to hand over material vitally important to its investigation to the leakiest White House since before they put the roof on the joint. At the same time, it seems that Rosenstein et.al. have agreed to give to the administration* material that the FBI has fought tooth-and-claw to keep from the congressional Republicans.

For the moment, I’m going to give Rosenstein credit for being a gifted bureaucratic infighter and survivor who has played the president* like a five-cent violin. (There are precedents supporting this view to be found just this morning.) There are a dozen ways for Rosenstein to slow-play the review of any classified documents. I think the president* got played on behalf of all of us.

[shraby]

1. Beat me to it, this is on DailyKos too.

Good read!

[Iliyah]

2. After what I've been reading, t-rump is fighting against Republicans

because everyone whose who in the Mueller investigation are Republicans. Republicans have lost their souls a very long time ago, but shit, they are digging a hole to hell.

[Hortensis]

6. :) Not THESE Republicans.

The noisy masses of self-made partisan idiots on both sides should not fool us into not recognizing that honor and integrity, and the intellectual ability to understand and truly appreciate the principles underlying our systems, exist in others and were never abandoned.

Sadly, the Republican Party purged all its better people holding elective office. Everyone who wouldn't serve the wealthy by going along with massive corruption and betrayal was run out, replaced by hard-core conservatives, leaving behind a few moderate poseurs like the McCains and Collinses, whose commitment to their cushy jobs proved far stronger than any commitment to principles and duty.

[mcar]

3. I hope Pierce is right about this

[sunRISEnow]

5. Right. I was bothered yesterday with the lack of results this "demand" should have generated.

I am back to watching, to see what is up. It has been a long year and a half watching and waiting.

[Turbineguy]

4. Nunes will likely betray

the confidence and could hoist himself on Trump's petard.

"tunnel rats", nicely played.

[kentuck]

7. I cannot imagine giving Congressional Repubs documents without letting Democrats see them also?

i cannot imagine....

[Solly Mack]

8. K&R

We'll have to wait and see. But, yeah, that is my hope as well.