Except apparently that meeting is at the behest of Rosenstein.
Per “A White House statement”, for what that is worth.
The statement doesn’t say the Thursday meeting is at his request. Only the discussion that already happened.
CNN reporting that the meeting is at Rosenstein’s request.
Come to think of it there’s actually a theory #4: this is Rosenstein’s reaction to the NYT story (or more accurately to the revelation that there have been people working for over a year to get that story published.)
Under this theory Rosenstein is the one who escalated this, saying to Kelly & Trump, “Either fire me or don’t - but no more of this backchannel bullshit to try to get me to resign.”
I’m inclined to think this was a fairly big Kelly fuckup by him and his staffers.
I think the theory you posted–that they thought they could pressure Rosenstein into resigning–is perhaps fairly accurate. When he didn’t, Trump – with his “kitchen cabinet” of Hannity, Pirro, Ingraham et al telling him not to fire anyone right now – was like “I’m not gonna be the one…”
And so you know who REALLY didn’t need this news today? Republicans running in midterms.
Theory #6 is that Trump is going to submit Rosenstein for the open SCOTUS position instead of Kavanaugh.
Theory #7 is that Rosenstein has new information on Benghazi and Clinton will be called in for another few investigations on that important subject.
We’re back to theory #3 after all!
Time-stamps etc on the boards are screwy today.
This thread in particular has always (well, for a while) seemed screwy, the post count never shows the total at the bottom for me, just the number of the post you’re on.
Didn’t Wumpus warn us about some Discourse weirdness for huge threads?
Same. Maybe it’s time for a new thread?
So now we need annual versions of this thread.
“Secret CIA source claims Russia rigged 2016 election - 2018 edition”
I mean, in a few months we can title it -
“Surprising absolutely no one, Russia rigged 2018 election, too”
See Louis Mensch isn’t the only one who isn’t worried. Posted without (other) comment.
I think we need weekly versions.
First weekly version should be "Infrastructure Week - edition: Secret CIA source claims Russia rigged 2016 election "
All the versions will eventually collapse into a thread singularity and merge with the “I’m drunk” thread.
New York Times: Forget anything anyone else has said about today’s outcome. Rosenstein wants to quit. Like really, really bad, because he’s such a terrible, terrible person who is so very, very ashamed about saying things about Trump that everyone else in DC says six times a day. He’s just waiting for Thursday so he can get down on his knees to beg Trump to chop off his head in person.
Clearly this is true because Kelly - er, senior White House officials familiar with the situation - say it is true, and everyone knows they are the bestest sources, the kind of sources that only the New York Times has! Never mind that these sources have been lying regularly since forever. Obviously they would never dream of lying to us, the New York fricking Times! Besides, if the New York Times quotes what they say, then clearly it becomes true, by definition. This is obviously what is going on, and not at all that Kelly - er, senior White House sources - are using us to cover up their mistakes, and also secretly laughing at us behind our back.
I’ve been pretty skeptical that the Times is being played like a fiddle, but holy shit. He’s “concerned Trump will attack him if they don’t have an amicable split”?
I mean…that’s spin that’s hard to ignore.