By TATIANA PROPHET

Washington -- Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who on May 17 appointed the special counsel to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election, on Thursday issued a statement via his office in the Department of Justice, cautioning Americans to be wary of accepting reports from anonymous officials.

"The Department of Justice has a long-established policy to neither confirm nor deny such allegations."

The majority of media reports on the release referred to the statement as "super strange" (CNN), "veiled" (Business Insider), and "cryptic" (Washington Post).

Whatever could he have been contemplating? 

Most likely, it was an article from the day before, on Wednesday in the Washington Post, which announced that the special counsel appointed by Rosenstein, Robert Mueller, was investigating possible obstruction of justice on the part of President Donald Trump.