President Trump and his aides reacted with indignation Wednesday night to an anonymous opinion column from a senior official blasting Trump’s ‘amorality’ and launched a frantic hunt for the author, who claims to be part of a secret ‘resistance’ inside the government protecting the nation from its commander in chief.
Trump reacted to the column with “volcanic” anger and was “absolutely livid” over what he considered a treasonous act of disloyalty, and told confidants he suspects the official works on national security issues or in the Justice Department, according to The Washington Post.
On Twitter he suggested that the person had committed treason, although legal experts point out that wasn’t the case because national security is not jeopardized.
The column sent tremors through the West Wing and launched a frantic guessing game. Startled aides canceled meetings and huddled behind closed doors to strategize a response. Aides were analyzing language patterns to try to discern author’s identity, or at a minimum the part of the administration where the author works.
The identity of the mystery scribe, Washington’s new ‘Deep Throat,’ will become the stuff of cocktail party chatter and Twitterati sleuths for weeks.
But in a tweet the New York Times described the person as a male, saying ‘he and others’ are working together behind the scenes of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
A Times spokeswoman later told Business Insider that the pronoun was a mistake that shouldn’t be read as a tip-off.
“Senior opinion editors know the identity of the official, as we pointed out in our editor’s note,” Danielle Ha said in an email. “The tweet was drafted by someone who is not aware of the author’s identity, including the gender, so the use of ‘he’ was an error.”