It sure does look like William Barr was the anonymous source for the Rod Rosenstein “land the plane” bombshell
Yesterday we learned that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein sold out America in the hope of staying in the good graces of Donald Trump. That was disappointing, to say the least. But the story is every bit as weird as it is treacherous, due to the use of three specific words we’ve heard before: “land the plane.”
Various pundits were quick to catch that these words have been used before, in similar fashion. Two weeks ago, while testifying before Congress on an unrelated matter, Attorney General William Barr said that he couldn’t address the Mueller report at the time, because “I’m landing the plane right now” with regard to its release. Wait a minute here. What are the odds that these two guys just happened to choose the same obscure metaphor while trying to pull off something underhanded? As it turns out, Rosenstein didn’t actually use the phrase – and this is where it gets tricky.
Here’s the actual passage from the Washington Post report: “‘I give the investigation credibility,’ Rosenstein said, according to an administration official with knowledge of what was said during the call. ‘I can land the plane.'” But here’s how CNN interpreted the Washington Post’s reporting: “‘I give the investigation credibility,’ Rosenstein told Trump, according to an administration official offering their own characterization of the call to the Post. ‘I can land the plane.'”
Aha. If we’re to go with the CNN interpretation, it would mean that Rod Rosenstein didn’t actually speak the above words; the quotes are from someone else familiar with the call who is offering their own “characterization” of what Rosenstein said. But if Rosenstein didn’t actually say “land the plane,” and instead it was the WaPo source who invoked the words land the plane, it would mean that the unnamed source and William Barr are the ones who have a strangely similar taste for this particular metaphor. That in turn would suggest that Barr is the source.
If so, this would mean that William Barr has planted this negative story about Rod Rosenstein in the hope of taking the heat off himself. This is actually quite plausible, when you consider that Barr has already been exposed as having been the anonymous source for a separate WaPo article yesterday. This doesn’t mean that Barr is lying about Rosenstein. When you consider Rosenstein’s public pro-Trump, anti-Obama, anti-media remarks on Thursday, it’s clear that he’s sold his soul. But it sure does look like Barr is leaking the ugly truth about Rosenstein in the hope of taking some heat off himself. These clowns deserve each other.
