do these 2 (bolded) paragraphs from the RR NYT piece seem strange and out of place to anyone else?
in the context of everything else, i don't understand why James Cole is even mentioned? i'm sure many people were considered for special counsel..?
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Mr. Rosenstein, 53, is a lifelong public servant. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard Law School, he clerked for a federal judge before joining the Justice Department in 1990 and was appointed United States attorney for Maryland.
Mr. Rosenstein also considered appointing as special counsel James M. Cole, himself a former deputy attorney general, three of the people said. Mr. Cole would have made an even richer target for Mr. Trump’s ire than has Mr. Mueller, a lifelong Republican: Mr. Cole served four years as the No. 2 in the Justice Department during the Obama administration and worked as a private lawyer representing one of Mrs. Clinton’s longtime confidants, Sidney Blumenthal.
Mr. Cole and Mr. Rosenstein have known each other for years. Mr. Cole, who declined to comment, was Mr. Rosenstein’s supervisor early in his Justice Department career when he was prosecuting public corruption cases.
Mr. Trump and his allies have repeatedly attacked Mr. Rosenstein and have also targeted Mr. McCabe, who was fired in March for failing to be forthcoming when he was interviewed in an inspector general investigation around the time of Mr. Comey’s dismissal. The inspector general later referred the matter to federal prosecutors in Washington.