Americans should exercise caution before crossing the street
Rod Rosenstein issued a strange statement last night.
“Americans should exercise caution before accepting as true any stories attributed to anonymous ‘officials,’ particularly when they do not identify the country — let alone the branch or agency of government — with which the alleged sources supposedly are affiliated,” Mr. Rosenstein said in the statement.
He did not cite specific reports. The Justice Department released Mr. Rosenstein’s statement after 9 p.m., a few hours after The Washington Post reported that the special counsel was investigating the business dealings of Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law and adviser. That report was attributed to unnamed American officials.
Asked about the impetus for the statement, a Justice Department spokesman declined to comment. Mr. Rosenstein did not respond to an email seeking comment on Thursday night.
So maybe it had nothing to do with the Post story or Trump or Russia or in fact any specific thing at all, maybe it was just a piece of Good Advice he felt moved to share with us late one Thursday for no particular reason. Maybe he’s just a funny guy.
Preet Bharara seems not to think so.
Americans should also exercise caution before accepting as true lies about firing of FBI Director & defamation of a war hero special counsel pic.twitter.com/KQUPpppcAI
— Preet Bharara (@PreetBharara) June 16, 2017
Dunno that people get this, and of course the Trump and right wing lie machines have every interest in confusing this, but anonymous does not necessarily at all mean uncorroborated. It _might_, because sometimes it’s difficult to get corroboration, but competent newsrooms will generally make significant efforts for significant stories, and report as much if it proves difficult…
Fun piece of hypocrisy, here, speaking of: certain of the useless, amateurish little unprincipled shits this administration have dirtied the white house halls with have been making a game of deliberately lying to the media, trying to get them to report falsehoods, the reasons not always clear, but note how useful it would be for their can’t trust the media narrative to get one through. So, really, I think it’s clear: this administration is all _for_ leaks. It’s the truth they’re at war with.
Finally, re that rule of thumb: I think by now people should be working it out: it’s quite the opposite. Yes, an anonymously sourced story _could_ be inaccurate, or incorrect. However, it starts a long distance ahead of certain other stories, at least…
Insofar as anything that comes officially from Trump or his press office is almost certainly complete bullshit.