Trump: I’ll root out traitor in the White House
A FURIOUS President Trump has ordered staff to hunt down the ‘senior official’ who has anonymously claimed to be part of a secret White House resistance.
Top aides cancelled meetings on Wednesday to discuss their response to a bombshell opinion piece in the New York Times which accused Mr Trump of ‘amorality’.
Its author – whose identity has been protected by the newspaper – claimed to be a member of a ‘quiet resistance’ among officials who are working to thwart parts of his agenda, his ‘reckless decisions’ and ‘worst inclinations’.
The aide said Mr Trump didn’t ‘fully grasp’ the scale of dismay among his staff with a leadership style that was ‘impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective’.
Although the writer insisted many of the administration’s policies ‘have already made America safer and more prosperous’, the successes had come ‘despite – not because of – the president’s leadership style’.
‘You’re sabotaging the country’
Sources said Mr Trump reacted to the article with ‘volcanic’ anger as the White House went into ‘total meltdown’. On Twitter, the president used the word ‘treason’ to describe the article.
According to the Washington Post, he suspects the official works in national security or the justice department.
Top officials took the extraordinary step of publicly denying they or their deputies wrote the offending piece.
They included vice president Mike Pence, director of national intelligence Dan Coats, Department of Homeland Security secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, attorney general Jeff Sessions and defence secretary James Mattis.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the article is ‘not mine’, condemning the writer as a ‘disgruntled, deceptive bad actor’.
The piece came a day after excerpts from a new book by veteran political reporter Bob Woodward revealed that senior Trump officials had even stolen papers off the president’s desk to prevent him taking measures that they believed would jeopardise national security.
Panicked aides were yesterday reportedly scrutinising the language of the article to try to discern the writer’s identity.
Vice president Mike Pence recently used the word ‘lodestar’ to describe the late senator John McCain, and the same word also appears in the article. Alternatively, some believe the word could point to Mr Pence’s speechwriter, Stephen Ford.
Other high-placed possibilities are defence secretary Jim Mattis and White House chief-of-staff John Kelly. According to Bob Woodward’s book, both ex-military men have been withering about the president.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has also been mooted. He has had to put up with a stream of public criticism from the president. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats has also invoked the anger of Mr Trump, clashing with him over the threat from Russia.
Another suspect further down the pecking order is White House counsel Dan McGahn, who has clashed with Mr Trump. Even First Lady Melania Trump, the president’s daughter Ivanka and her husband, Jared Kushner, have been pointed to.
But Mrs Trump sought to silence speculation yesterday, saying: ‘To the writer of the op-ed – you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions.’
Other Trump allies have rallied to his cause, including Mark Lotter, a former special assistant to Mr Trump, who said it was ‘cowardly’ to criticise the president but keep serving in his government.
Republican senator Bob Corker said: ‘This is what all of us have understood to be the situation from day one. That’s why I think all of us encourage the good people around the president to stay.’