So, no closer to getting to the bottom of it. But, in light of the crazy shit that's going on now, maybe this report was at the very least irresponsible of the Times.
I read it again. It's an odd story for the Times in that it opens without ever saying, "according to sources" or anything of the like. It just states the premise as fact. That seems odd for any paper to do - more something you'd expect from a book. It's not until the fourth paragraph that the Times admits the article is based on accounts of "Several people [who] described the episodes in interviews over the past several months, insisting on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. "
Odder still is that it appears, as Southpaw says above, none of those people were actually there for the things they're reporting:
"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."
They were briefed. They weren't there.
And...
"A Justice Department spokeswoman also provided a statement from a person who was present when Mr. Rosenstein proposed wearing a wire. The person, who would not be named, acknowledged the remark but said Mr. Rosenstein made it sarcastically."
Still a comment from someone who was told by someone who was there.
The closest we get to someone who was actually there is this:
"But according to the others who described his comments, Mr. Rosenstein not only confirmed that he was serious about the idea but also followed up by suggesting that other F.B.I. officials who were interviewing to be the bureau’s director could also secretly record Mr. Trump."
And even that's not clear whether the others who described Rosenstein's comments actually heard them themselves at the time they were supposedly uttered. Other than a paragraph quoting something in a McCabe memo - which the Times reporter hasn't seen - when the Times goes into detail about those events, it slips back into reporting as though it's fact without any sourcing at all, so I have to assume they're still talking about people who "were briefed either on the events themselves or on memos written by F.B.I. officials."
All in all, this is a very poorly sourced - in the era of poorly sourced - article.
Let me try this conspiracy theory out on you:
Sean Hannity, in collusion with Trump and/or Trump's lawyers or other advisers, Rudy Giuliani, perhaps Stephen Miller and even Steve Bannon, are actually the ones who cobbled up this doozey and put a bug in the Times reporter's ear. Knowing it wasn't true, they could get the benefit of having such a damning story of Rosenstein riling up the base with both midterms and Mueller's investigation drawing ever closer.
That makes sense because both Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson warned Trump it was a set up, while Laura Ingraham, Jeanine Pirro, and others immediately cried fowl and demanded Rosenstein be fired.
It stands to reason that there would be a handful of people involved in creating something like this, and only a handful in the know. And it's reported that Trump regularly consults Hannity for strategy "nearly every weeknight." So, charge up the other loonies to do the screaming about firing Rosenstein and set the stage for eventually firing Sessions and Rosenstein.
Similar to what happened with Ed Whelan, where a backlash caused him to drop that bullshit about a case of mistaken identity on the part of Kavanaugh's alleged attempted rape victim, the backlash to this poorly sourced Times article may have frightened them into wanting to get some distance from it, and, knowing it wasn't true, made them fear what would happen if other reporters uncovered the real story.
Just another bungled attempt to protect themselves and Trump. Like something I read once: they're not evil geniuses, just evil.
The Times famously had a Bush White House dupe in Judith Miller in the run up to the Iraq invasion, and she is still infamous for that, so we might think their reporters would be extra careful, but we're a long way from Bush, and, the Times editorial decisions are rather suspect these days. To wit: that anonymous OpEd.
Of course, we also believe that the New York office of the FBI leaked anti-Hillary information to Rudy Giuliani during the 2016 campaign. So, perhaps it's as simple as one (or more) of them concocting this story about Rosenstein, and Hannity and Tucker (and Lindsey Graham) are just super paranoid.
That may be the simplest explanation.
Whatever it is, this is a sorry piece of work on the Times' part. It's not that what they say about Rosenstein is entirely unbelievable. It's that this article should have never made it past an editor in this form.
Further example of that: Mr. Rosenstein mentioned the possibility of wearing a wire on at least one other occasion, the people said, though they did not provide details.
And you didn't then ask for details?
I'll be watching for other news sources to try to dig into this mess and for release of the McCabe memos much of it claims to be based on. And I'll read everything the authors of the piece, Matt Apuzzo and Nicholas Fandos, write with extreme caution. I wonder if they (the reporters and editors) rushed this out without proper sourcing when Trump called for releasing McCabe's memos thinking they'd lose their scoop if that happened first.
The bottom line on it all for me is that, while the FBI certainly has faults, and there's a lot of suspicious shit that went down in its offices, Mueller's investigation has turned up criminal activity within the Trump cabal time after time after time. That's no witch hunt. That's a proper investigation, no matter how it got started. And it's not over.
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