Former U.S. Attorney and National Review mainstay Andrew McCarthy wrote an absolutely must-read piece on Saturday entitled "Why All the Secrecy?" Don't worry, it's not useful or informative. But you have to read it because there may never be a better example of everything wrong with journalism in the Trump era.
Being a lawyer who not only graduated law school but passed a bar exam and – AND! – rose to one of the more prestigious categories of jobs in the legal profession as a U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Andrew McCarthy absolutely goddamn knows "why all the secrecy." He understands exactly how criminal investigations, grand juries, and the other basics of the criminal justice system work. He knows as well as he knows how to put on a pair of pants that no prosecutor, judge, or investigator on the planet is going to conduct an investigation via the mass media. He knows which part of our nation's legal process is the "Turn over your cards and show the public" stage, and he knows that this certainly is not it.
Yet here he is, writing this entire goddamn piece without once mentioning things that even an observant Law & Order binge-watcher probably knows. He makes some half-hearted attempt to justify why no such rules should apply in this situation, but the fact that he could write this entire thing (and have an editor give it the green light) without using the phrase "Rule 6e" even dismissively is…well, it takes 'brazen' to a new level.
Of course the problem is he's not interested in making any kind of argument that stands up to logic or scrutiny. He is, in the media outlet conservatives often cite as their Serious Intellectual Place, throwing red meat to conspiracy-hungry idiots. The false naivete implicit in the titular question is preposterous, as though this retired Federal prosecutor really can't understand why some level of secrecy is being maintained here. But he doesn't care. In his post-prosecutor career as a journalist he also knows how to attract clicks and to whip his following of increasingly deranged Trump cultists into a frenzy.
This is modern "opinion" writing, especially on the right: pretending you don't know really obvious and simple things to appeal to people so dumb or myopic that they legitimately don't understand.
Where do I sign? I hear it pays well.