TRUMP OFFICIALS ON THURSDAY WERE QUICK TO SCRATCH THEIR NAMES OFF THE LIST OF POTENTIAL AUTHORS OF AN UNSIGNED OPINION PIECE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES.
On Wednesday, a senior staffer in the White House of Donald Trump anonymously published an op-ed in the New York Times claiming he was one of many administration officials actively working to “frustrate parts of (Trump’s) agenda and his worst inclinations
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IT’S LIKELY NOT PENCE, DESPITE ‘LODESTAR’
Throughout Wednesday, speculation was rife that the author was none other than VicePresident Mike Pence. This was all based on one piece of evidence: the use of the somewhat outdated word “lodestar.” Pence says “lodestar” a lot; in one supercut compiled by Buzzfeed, Pence could be seen using the term — roughly a synonym for “beacon” — five times in televised speeches or interviews.
The op-ed also uses the term “first principles,” a military-esque term often used by Secretary of Defence James Mattis. Claire Hardaker, a forensic linguist at Lancaster University, suspects that the insertion of these terms is not an accident.
“If you wanted to throw off the scent, these are precisely the kinds of eye-catching breadcrumbs you would leave in your writing to lead people astray,” she told the Post (she was also skeptical forensic linguistics could work in this case). And indeed, staffers in the Trump White House have admitted that they do engage in these kinds of deceptions when leaking to the press.
“To cover my tracks, I usually pay attention to other staffers’ idioms and use that in my background quotes. That throws the scent off me,” said one White House leaker quoted in a May article about leaking.
THE AUTHOR CAN RUN, BUT MAY NOT BE ABLE TO HIDE
In 1995 the novel Primary Colors, a thinly veiled mockery of the campaign of President Bill Clinton, was released by an author identified only as “Anonymous.” Within months, however, the Washington Post used handwriting analysis on an early manuscript of the book to identify the true author as political columnist Joe Klein. There is no handwriting in this case to examine. The New York Times is also well-known for heavily editing its opinion page, meaning that any tell-tale grammatical errors have already been scrubbed. Nevertheless, just as with a fingerprint, it is still possible to make a match even from a “contaminated” sample. Argamon said that a linguist would find it relatively easy to remove “consciously chosen features” that the author may have embedded in the text to conceal his/her identity. “Grammatical editing will also remove some useful features, but some would still remain,” he added.
DON’T COUNT ON A ‘SMOKING GUN’
Arguably the most famous moment in forensic linguistics came in the mid-1990s, when it was used to help identify and convict terrorist Ted Kaczynski, also known as the Unabomber. His manifesto included the term “you can’t eat your cake and have it, too,” instead of the more conventional form “you can’t have your cake and eat it, too” — a difference that alerted both investigators and Kaczynski’s family. Despite this, most forensic analysis focuses on subtle differences in writing style that aren’t obvious to the average person.
“We aren’t aware of how often we use ‘in’ vs. ‘into’, but different individuals will have slightly different preferences, which can be detected through statistical comparison,” said Shlomo Argamon, forensic linguist at the Illinois Institute of Technology. Forensic linguists have also had “eureka” moments in deciphering the age and background of a suspect.
A famous case involved a kidnapper who left his victim’s family a note instructing them to leave their ransom on the “devil strip” — a term specific to Akron, Ohio, referring to the patch of grass between a street and sidewalk. Police were then able to arrest their only suspect with Akron origins.
However, demographics are probably going to be of little use in the White House op-ed: The author is almost certainly educated, relatively wealthy and Caucasian.
LINGUISTS HAVE CRACKED TOUGHER CASES
Jack Grieve is most well-known for leading a team that identified the author of the Bixby Letter, a famous 1864 letter sent by President Abraham Lincoln to a mother who ostensibly lost five sons in the Civil War (the letter features prominently in the opening of Saving Private Ryan).
The letter is only 139 words long, but Grieve’s team was able to use a technique known as “n-gram analysis” to determine with virtual certainty that it was actually written by Lincoln’s secretary, John Hay.
Even quotidian sentences can be written a number of different ways. “He’s got a book,” for instance, can also be “he has a book.” “The earth” can be written as “the world.”
N-gram analysis is a way of digitally highlighting all these individual tics in order to compare them against existing writings by suspected authors.
The more tics that line up, the more analysts are confident in identifying a “suspect.” If an investigator was given enough writing samples from White House staffers, Grieve suspects that it would be possible to zero in on an author using n-gram analysis.
TRUST NO ONE NEAR THE HALLS OF POWER
With the release of All the President’s Men in 1974, Washington was left to guess the identity of Deep
Throat, an anonymous informant who had provided the Washington Post with clues about the
Watergate breakin that helped lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.
It turned out to be FBI associate director Mark Felt, although Felt fervently denied it at the time.
“W. Mark Felt says he isn’t now, nor has he ever been, Deep Throat,” reads the first line of a Wall Street Journal story that asked Felt directly.
Primary Colors author Joe Klein, similarly, spent months angrily denying any involvement in the book.
“For God’s sake, definitely I didn’t write it,” he told The New York Times.
The moral of these two stories is that no matter how fervent their denial, Washington power players generally cannot be trusted.