One of the hot stories today has been that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein was so angry at the White House because his memo had been portrayed as a recommendation to fire FBI Director James Comey that he threatened to resign:

Rosenstein threatened to resign after the narrative emerging from the White House on Tuesday evening cast him as a prime mover of the decision to fire Comey and that the president acted only on his recommendation, said the person close to the White House, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

I am told Rod Rosenstein was so upset w/ the White House for pinning the Comey firing on him yesterday that he was on the verge of resigning

— jonkarl (@jonkarl) May 11, 2017

This really isn’t reporting. One anonymous person “close to the White House” isn’t sourcing, it is rumor-mongering. But that is the state of the media these days.

This story, much like the “denial of resources” rumor that had hormones running amok yesterday, is now falling apart. It started with this NBC report:

Two Justice Department officials are refuting a report that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein threatened to resign unless his role in writing the Comey memo was better defined so that the impression wasn’t left that he was the “prime mover” in the firing. “Didn’t happen,” one official told NBC News. “He did not threaten to resign” said another.

And now Justice has gone on the record:

DOJ on the record: Rosenstein did not threaten to resign

— Laura Jarrett (@LauraAJarrett) May 11, 2017

As I post this, Rosenstein is meeting with the Senate Intelligence Committee along with Dana Boente WHO IS HEADING THE INVESTIGATION INTO RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE IN THE 2016 ELECTION. (I had to write that is caps because of the insistence, against all evidence, that jettisoning James Comey is going to have any impact on that investigation.) Boente is also US Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and it was one of his grand juries that issued subpoenas for some of Mike Flynn’s associates to testify.

Many outlets are making this meeting seem as though it was linked to Comey’s firing, Justice is saying that the meeting was made at Senator Burr’s request before Comey was fired.

Justice spox says Rosenstein meeting on Capitol Hill was scheduled prior to this week's events / at Burr's request.

— John Fritze (@jfritze) May 11, 2017

What we seem to see happening is a level of derangement in a media that is using “Trump-Russia collusion” as a suppository that justifies reporting anything as fact without bothering to even ask a department spokesman for an official version.