Evie Fordham on September 6, 2018
The anonymous author of the White House “resistance” op-ed published in The New York Times Wednesday used an intermediary to submit the piece to The NYT.
The piece “was submitted to Times opinion editors last week through an intermediary,” according to a story by The NYT citing its op-ed editor James Dao.
“It was clear early on that the writer wanted anonymity, but we didn’t grant anything until we read it and we were confident that they were who they said they were,” Dao told The NYT.
Dao said that he spoke with the author, a senior White House official, directly at some point but did not explain what form of communication they used, according to CNN.
The identity of the third party who vouched for the alleged senior administration official is unknown.
The NYT editorial board called publishing the anonymous piece a “rare step.”
“We have done so at the request of the author, a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure,” the editorial board wrote in a note at the beginning of the op-ed. “We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers.”
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