I’m very curious about this David Ignatius column. It’s written with great drama and portent. But on its face, it contains not too much more than another version of Chairman Adam Schiff’s announcement that he’s planning a vastly expanded Russia probe that will reach much further into the President’s business and personal finances. The thing is that Ignatius is one of the most wired people in Washington when it comes to the nexus of international spycraft and US politics. His columns are frequently based on more than he can or chooses to explicitly reveal.
Remember for instance that it was Ignatius who first revealed the calls between Mike Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak from the final days of 2016.
But there is one line in the article, almost a throwaway, which got my attention: “One government source speculates that Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, blocked any attempt to compel disclosure of the [DeutscheBank’s] Trump file records to avoid getting himself or Mueller fired.” A “government source” who is “speculating” is the wispiest of sourcing. But again, I’m used to Ignatius columns hinting at things that turn out to be a much bigger deal than they seem at first. And the thrust of the article is the importance of Schiff’s focus on getting records from DeutscheBank.
