White House consumed by op-ed whodunit,
Trump cabinet members deny they wrote column about danger he presents
WASHINGTON— President Donald Trump’s administration moved to get rid of limits on how long it can detain immigrant children. The Justice Department charged an alleged North Korean operative for major cyberattacks. Senate Democrats tried to ambush Trump’s Supreme Court nominee at a bitter confirmation hearing. U.S. officials negotiated the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
And the question of the day in Washington was this: whodunit?
An article published Wednesday in the New York Times, in which an anonymous “senior official” in the Trump administration described Trump as a danger to the country and claimed multiple administration figures were secretly working to constrain him, set off wild speculation inside and outside the administration about who might have been the author.
Trump’s fury about the article prompted a surreal round of Thursday denials from prominent members of the administration. By the end of the day, the vice-president, secretary of state, defence secretary, homeland security secretary, housing secretary, treasury secretary, energy secretary, commerce secretary, trade representative, attorney general and intelligence director, among others, had all issued it-wasn’t-me claims.
The White House accused the media of having a “wild obses- sion” with the author’s identity, but the president himself appeared to be fixated on it. In a Thursday statement that sounded suspiciously like Trump, press secretary Sarah Sanders denounced the author as a “gutless loser” and asked outraged citizens to call up the Times, whose phone number she provided. On Wednesday, Trump wrote on Twitter: “TREASON?” (Legal experts made clear that the Times article does not constitute treason.) And he demanded that the Times “must, for national security purposes,” turn over the author “to government at once,” a plea the Times ignored.
Betting operations were taking wagers on who the author might be.
The mystery author was the subject of both grateful praise and a wide variety of criticism, the latter not only from Trump fans: Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren, among others, said the article was vastly insufficient given the kind of crisis the author described.
“If senior officials believe the president is unfit, they should stop hiding behind anonymous op-eds and leaking info to Bob Woodward, and do what the Constitution demands they do: invoke the 25th Amendment,” which allows top officials to declare the president unable to execute his duties, “and remove this president from office.”
The Times article was only one of the administration’s unresolved public relations crises. The article appeared just a day after the publication of damaging excerpts from renowned journalist Woodward’s book on Trump, titled Fear.
The book painted the same troubling picture as the article did, except with names attached.
The twin controversies unfolded exactly two months before the congressional midterm elections that will determine control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. Trump has struggled to stick to his administration’s preferred campaign messages, about the economy and immigration, amid a cascading series of problems related to his conduct. The NAFTA negotiations between Foreign Affairs Min- ister Chrystia Freeland and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer resumed in Washington on Thursday afternoon. Freeland called the afternoon meeting “constructive” but revealed no details. She returned for a 20-minute nighttime meeting with Lighthizer, saying it was important to discuss a couple of important issues face to face. She refused to identify the issues or say how close they were to a deal.
Trump has threatened to proceed with a trade deal with Mexico alone if Canada is not willing to make concessions. House Speaker Paul Ryan was noncommittal on Thursday when asked if he would be would be willing to support an agreement without Canada and whether he thought such an agreement would comply with trade law. Several Democrats told Bloomberg News that they would oppose an agreement that did not include Canada. The Teamsters union said the same.