So who are these sources? Joseph Heller mocked Washington’s – and journalism’s — culture of ‘sources’ in his novel Good as Gold.
‘I believe I got that information about you from a reliable unnamed source.’
‘I’ve been doing a lot of work here as an unnamed source,’ Gold answered with nervousness and haste, ‘so it may have come from me. No truth to it at all.’
None of Cockburn’s sources was ‘in the room’ – as they say in Washington – for the (alleged) discussions between Mueller and Barr and their two staffs. And none of the sources was briefed by the people ‘in the room’. But they did talk to the people briefed by the people in the room and – twice removed from the original conversations – they all give the same account. It is that the older Trump children and Jared will be indicted for financial crimes while Mueller wants to charge Trump with obstruction of justice. The charges, Cockburn is told now, will not be about ‘Russia collusion’.