Melania Trump has joined the list of those denying they wrote an anonymous New York Times op-ed piece as the inflammatory essay becomes an all-hands on deck crisis for the Trump Administration.
“To the writer of the op-ed – you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions,” the first lady said in a statement.
She joined Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and a string of senior figures in flatly denying they wrote the ‘resistance’ op-ed whose publication drew a furious response from Trump.
Cabinet secretary after Cabinet secretary said it wasn’t them as Trump has launched a massive mole hunt for the author behind the scandalous piece, which revealed members of his own administration are thwarting him.
Those who have released statements of denial include:
- Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen
- Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson
- Defense Secretary James Mattis
- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin
- Attorney General Jeff Sessions
- Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross
- Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke
- Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao
- Health and Human Services Services Secretary Alex Azar
- Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats
- Labor Department Secretary Alexander Acosta
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Robert Wilkie
- Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
- Energy Secretary Rick Perry
- UN Ambassador Nikki Haley
- U.S. Ambassador to Russia Jon Huntsman
- CIA Director Gina Haspel
- Federal Trade Commission Chairman Joe Simons
- OMB director Mick Mulvaney
- Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai
- Secretary of State Mike Pompeo
- VIce President Mike Pence
- First Lady Melania Trump
Trump is reading the statements carefully, which are being printed off and given to him, an official told CNN, adding the denials have one audience above all – Trump himself.
Pence’s denial was especially noteworthy after online speculation about who penned the piece narrowed in on the vice president, making him the odds on favorite as being the author. Nearly 40 percent of JimHeath.TV readers believe it’s Pence in our online poll.
Jarrod Agen, Pence’s deputy chief of staff, however, tweeted that Pence “puts his name on his op-eds.”
Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson never denied calling Trump a ‘moron’ and a former senior White House official told CNN that Trump ‘never forgave him for it.’
Tillerson was fired in March.