The FBI is full of TDS. Michael Schmidt is the reporter Comey and the Mueller team have been leaked to. Anything that comes through him is questionable.
Via Daily Beast:
A debate with major implications has broken out over whether Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was being sarcastic when, in the spring of 2017, he reportedly talked about covertly recording President Donald Trump.
A former career Justice Department official who was in the room when the topic arose told The Daily Beast he believes the deputy attorney general was being sarcastic. But another person in the room at the time has indicated she took it seriously.
Former FBI lawyer Lisa Page was present for Rosenstein’s comments on secret recordings and did not believe he was joking or being sarcastic, according to two people familiar with the events in question. A spokesperson for Page declined to comment for this story.
The former official who was also in the room for the meeting Page attended told The Daily Beast he did not think Rosenstein was being serious when he made the comment.
“Never for one second did I think he was seriously suggesting that anybody do that,” that person said. He added that, to his knowledge, there was no further discussion or action on recording the president—reinforcing his assessment that Rosenstein wasn’t being serious.[…[
If Rosenstein truly meant that Justice Department officials should covertly record the president, the White House would view it as an extraordinary act of insubordination and, possibly, grounds for Rosenstein’s firing. If, however, Rosenstein wasn’t being serious, then the comment would be forgivable in some quarters.
Because of the high stakes, the question of Rosenstein’s intention regarding the comments has generated furious debate. The New York Times’ deputy managing editor, Matt Purdy, released a statement defending the paper’s characterization of Rosenstein’s remarks as serious (a characterization Page shared, according to The Daily Beast’s sources).
“Just because you don’t like the facts, don’t comfort yourself by dismissing the story as fake or credulous reporting,” Purdy said. “Mike Schmidt and Adam Goldman have been part of breaking some of the biggest stories of the Trump era and this story is based on months of reporting. The DOJ claim that Rosenstein was sarcastic when he suggested he wear a wire on Trump is not supported by our reporting or others. If you actually read them, the follow stories by [The Washington Post], ABC News and CNN support our story, not debunk it. It is the responsibility of The Times and the rest of the media to report the facts, however comforting or discomforting.”
Some conservatives, meanwhile, have telegraphed skepticism about The New York Times reporting. Rep. Matt Gaetz, a Florida Republican and close ally of the White House, released a statement about the story noting that it was based on unnamed sources, “far from a guarantee of veracity.”
“[U]ntil concrete evidence emerges, these accusations remain salacious and unverified, and should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism,” Gaetz continued, calling on the House Judiciary Committee to question Rosenstein and other meeting attendees about the matter.