Trump Calls on NYT to Identify Anonymous Op-Ed Writer on National-Security Grounds

If the person does exist, the president says, he or she is a threat to national security

President Donald Trump is calling for The New York Times to disclose the identity of the anonymous author of an op-ed that details what the paper is calling a senior administration official’s “resistance inside the Trump administration.”

In a Sept. 5 tweet, Trump cast doubt on whether the official even exists (“or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source?”), but said that if he or she did, “the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”

In another tweet two hours earlier, he wrote just one word that seemed to be referring to the same opinion piece: “TREASON?”

NY Times didn’t respond to a request by The Epoch Times for comment by deadline.

The op-ed writer claims to be part of a network of senior officials who are “working diligently from within” to “frustrate parts of his agenda.”

“This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state,” the writer says.

The article continues that administration officials early on considered trying to invoke the 25th Amendment to have the president removed from office, but instead decided to create a “quiet resistance” inside the White House to avoid a constitutional crisis.

“To be clear, ours is not the popular ’resistance' of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous,” it says.

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement shortly after the op-ed was published, saying that the writer, who wrote that they were obstructing the president’s agenda because “our first duty is to this country,” was instead putting himself or herself above the country. She called on the person to “do the right thing” and resign.

“Nearly 62 million people voted for President Donald J. Trump in 2016, earning him 306 Electoral College votes–versus 232 for his opponent. None of them voted for a gutless, anonymous source to the failing New York Times,“ she wrote. ”We are disappointed, but not surprised, that the paper chose to publish this pathetic, reckless, and selfish op-ed.”

There has been wild speculation since the article was published about who the author could be. In a tweet, NY Times called the writer a “he” but then said the tweet had been “drafted by someone who is not aware of the author’s identity, including the gender, so the use of ‘he’ was an error,” according to The Associated Press. However, the tweet wasn’t deleted.

Sanders called for an end to the media’s speculation on who the “gutless loser” is by tweeting that people should call the newspaper’s opinion desk if they want to know.

“The media’s wild obsession with the identity of the anonymous coward is recklessly tarnishing the reputation of thousands of great Americans who proudly serve our country and work for President Trump. Stop,” she wrote in a statement.

She then gave the newspaper’s phone number.