Justice Department seeks details that could ID anonymous author

The Justice Department is trying to unearth the identity of the Trump administration official who denounced the president in a New York Times op-ed last year under the byline Anonymous, according to a letter from a senior law enforcement official Monday.

In the letter, Assistant Attorney General Joseph H. Hunt asked the publisher of a forthcoming book by the writer and the author’s book agents for proof that the official never signed a nondisclosure agreement and had no access to classified information or, absent that, for information about where the person worked in the government, and when.

“If the author is, in fact, a current or former ‘senior official’ in the Trump administration, publication of the book may violate that official’s legal obligations under one or more nondisclosure agreements,” Hunt wrote to Carol Ross of the Hachette Book Group, which is publishing Anonymous’ book, as well as to Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn, the agents for the former self-described senior official.

Trump, people close to him said, has long been troubled by Anonymous, whose op-ed condemned him as essentially unfit for office and described a “resistance” within the administration trying to keep the government on course. Trump said last year that he wanted the Justice Department to investigate the essay, declaring its writing an act of treason. Prosecutors said at the time that such an inquiry would be inappropriate because it was likely that no laws were broken.