Trump rips anonymous column by top official
WASHINGTON • In a striking anonymous broadside, a senior Trump administration official wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times on Wednesday claiming to be part of a group of people “working diligently from within” to impede President Donald Trump’s “worst inclinations” and ill-conceived parts of his agenda.
Trump said it was a “gutless editorial” and “really a disgrace,” and his press secretary called on the official to resign.
Trump later tweeted, “TREASON?” and in an extraordinary move demanded that if “the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
The writer, claiming to be part of the “resistance” to Trump but not from the left, said, “Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.” The newspaper described the author of the column only as a senior official in the Trump administration.
“It may be cold comfort in this chaotic era, but Americans should know that there are adults in the room,” the author continued. “We fully recognize what is happening. And we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”
A defiant Trump lashed out at the Times. “They don’t like Donald Trump and I don’t like them,” he said.
The essay immediately triggered a wild guessing game as to the author’s identity on social media, in newsrooms and inside the West Wing, where officials were blindsided by its publication.
In a blistering statement, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused the author of choosing to “deceive” the president by remaining in the administration.
“He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people,” she said. “The coward should do the right thing and resign.”
White House officials did not immediately respond to a request to elaborate on Trump’s call for the writer to be turned over to the government.
To White House officials, the ultimatum appeared to play into the very concerns about the president’s impulses raised by the essay’s author. Trump has demanded that aides identify the leaker, according to two people familiar with the matter, though it was not yet clear how they might do so. The two were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
A House of Cards-style plot twist in an already overthe-top administration, Trump allies and political insiders scrambled late Wednesday to unmask the writer.
The text was pulled apart for clues: Hotly debated was the author’s use of the word “lodestar,” which pops up frequently in speeches by VicePresident Mike Pence.