But Rosenstein was only authorized to permit the investigation on the Russian-Trump connection. Any other investigation beyond Russia/Trump would put Sessions back in charge, he only recused himself from Russia/Trump, Sessions is still the boss on any other investigation. So any secret mandate for broadening the mandate of the SC beyond that are null and void. Rosenstein didn’t have that authority.
I agree. My point is, in addition to what you said, it appears the memo was written after the fact, because they couldn’t find anything with Manafort and Russia during the campaign, so they needed something to squeeze him with so he’d make up something about Trump.
RR looks more suspicious here - what if the highly redacted portion is another sequence of people + expansion ala Manafort for 2016 Russia + election AND 2005 Ukraine stuff, person #2 for 2016 Russia + election AND whatever they want, person #3 for 2016 Russia + election AND whatever else they want, etc.