Top officials cry ‘Not me!’ on article

WASHINGTON — One after another, President Donald Trump’s top lieutenants stepped forward to declare, “Not me.”

They lined up to deny writing an incendiary New York Times opinion piece that was purportedly submitted by a member of an administration “resistance” movement straining to thwart Trump’s most dangerous impulses.

By email, by tweet and on camera, the denials paraded in Thursday from Cabinet-level officials apparently crafted for an audience of one, seated in the Oval Office. Senior officials in key national security and economic policy roles charged the article’s writer with cowardice, disloyalty and acting against America’s interests in harsh terms that mimicked the president’s own words. In an interview with Fox News, Trump said it was unfair for the person to pen the editorial anonymously because there’s no way to discredit it.

As striking as the essay was the long list of officials who plausibly could have been its author. Many privately shared some of the article’s same concerns about Trump with colleagues, friends and reporters.

With such a wide circle of potential suspicion, Trump’s men and women felt they had no choice but to speak out. The denials and condemnations came in from far and wide: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Jim Mattis denied authorship on a visit to India; Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke chimed in from American Samoa. In Washington, the claims of “not me” echoed from Vice President Pence’s office, from Energy Secretary Rick Perry, from Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman from Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, and other Cabinet members.

It is unfair for the person to pen the editorial anonymously because there’s no way to discredit it

Donald Trump, US president