Senior Donald Trump administration official flays president in anonymous New York Times op-ed essay

The New York Times, it would not be inaccurate to say, has been at loggerheads with the Donald Trump administration almost since the day the real estate mogul-turned-politician took office. The 167-year-old newspaper has been publishing exposé after exposé about the administration, followed up with op-eds, each more scathing than the next. On Wednesday, however, the paper published something a little bit different: An anonymous op-ed story. And why? Because it was written by a senior official in the Trump administration whose ‘job would be jeopardised ’ by the disclosure of her/his identity. It wasn’t long before the piece titled ‘ I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration’ got the attention of the target of its ire. Trump swiftly took to Twitter to send out the following tweets:

TREASON?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018

Does the so-called “Senior Administration Official” really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source? If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 5, 2018

Meanwhile, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders issued a statement calling the author a coward and demanding the person resign. So just what was it that this ‘gutless anonymous person’ wrote? Taking note of the ever-growing divisions in the US that are being played out in the House, the senior official writes, “(T)he president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic”. Expressing the resolve of a handful of officials in the Trump administration to thwart Trump’s ‘more misguided impulses’, the piece zooms in to what its writer believes to be the fundamental problem: Trump’s ‘amorality’. [caption id=“attachment_4894571” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] File image of US president Donald Trump. AP[/caption] The senior official admits that there have been some positive steps taken by the administration (deregulation, tax reform etc), but hastens to add that these achievements have come “despite — not because of — the president’s leadership style, which is impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective”. The opinion piece followed publication on Tuesday of the first excerpts from a damaging book by Bob Woodward of The Washington Post describing chaos in the White House. “Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the Cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president. But no one wanted to precipitate a constitutional crisis. So we will do what we can to steer the administration in the right direction until — one way or another — it’s over,” the senior official writes in the New York Times piece. Under the 25th Amendment, adopted in 1967, the vice-president and a majority of either Cabinet officials or “such other body as Congress may by law provide” may declare in writing that the president “is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” It has never been used to strip a president from power and it would be a complicated process. “We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous,” the writer said. “But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic,” the author goes on to write. With inputs from Reuters