Trump cries ‘treason’ as official writes about ‘quiet resistance’
Prez attacks NYT for oped, calls writer gutless, asks whether official exists
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump reacted angrily to a damning op-ed in The New York Times by an unidentified official in his administration, suggesting it could amount to treason.
Amid speculation on who wrote the article, vice president Mike Pence and secretary of state Mike Pompeo denied involvement.
“TREASON?,” Trump tweeted immediately after the publication of the piece on Wednesday. On Thursday, First Lady Melania Trump joined in, saying in a statement “people with no names are writing our nation’s history”. Addressing the writer, she added, “You are not protecting the country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly action.”
The author writes that there are many senior officials in the administration working as a “quiet resistance” to protect the country and the presidency from some parts of Trump’s agenda and his “worst inclinations”.
“I would know. I am one of them,” the official wrote.
Pence’s office said he was not the writer, tamping down speculation triggered by the use of the word “lodestar”, which he tends to use frequently. “The Vice President puts his name on his op-eds,” his communications director Jarrod Agen tweeted. In New Delhi, where he was attending the 2+2 talks, Pompeo told reporters: “It’s not mine.” Other senior officials such as director of national intelligence Dan Coats moved quickly to say they were not behind the article, as efforts continued to find the author, whose identity is known only to the NYT editors, who withheld it upon request.
In his reaction, Trump called the author “gutless”. “The Deep State and the Left, and their vehicle, the Fake News Media, are going Crazy - & they don’t know what to do,” he tweeted on Thursday, and then went on to list his achievements.
“The Economy is booming like never before, Jobs are at Historic Highs, soon TWO Supreme Court Justices & maybe Declassification to find Additional Corruption. Wow!”
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said of the writer: “This coward should do the right thing and resign.”
The op-ed reinforced the theme of legendary journalist Bob Woodward’s upcoming book Fear: Trump in the White House, which says that senior officials are working to save the presidency and the US from Trump’s worst instincts .
Axios news site reported that two senior officials of the Trump administration reached out to NYT, saying the op-ed reflected exactly how many other officials felt. “A lot of us (were) wishing we’d been the writer, I suspect ... I hope he (Trump) knows— maybe he does? — that there are dozens and dozens of us,” it quoted one of them as saying.