I personally can’t believe the author of the notorious anti-Trump op-ed in the New York Times wasn’t discovered over the weekend. The Trump administration reportedly has 12 potential candidates for authorship, yet no one was actually assigned culpability. (RELATED: White House Narrows Down Anonymous Op-Ed Author to 12 Possibilities.)
So Washington’s parlor game du jour continues, as journalists still try to grapple with who actually wrote the controversial piece.
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Over the weekend, Mike Allen of Axios, one of the more connected gossips in the Beltway, actually changed his mind on the nature of the op-ed author. Before, we reported that Allen was convinced the writer really was a “senior official,” meaning that he or she was a household name. (RELATED: Washington Post Reporter Implies NYT Anonymous Author Not a Significant Administration Official.)
Allen has since changed his tune, and now suspects the author is a nobody, and might not actually warrant the title “senior” within the administration.
—@mikeallen breaks down the clues about the mystery NYT op-ed writer and asks, “How ‘senior’ is Anonymous?” https://t.co/dUAvPFX3gZ
— Oliver Darcy (@oliverdarcy) September 9, 2018
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In his weekend newsletter, Allen brought up three new facts about the story behind the op-ed that changed his mind. First, he pointed out that Jim Dao, the NYT’s opinion section editor, needed “testimony” from a “trusted intermediary” in order to verify that the author indeed worked in the administration. Allen asks: “If the official were famous, how much testimony would you need?”
The second clue is a big one: Within the editorial, the author describes an interaction with a colleague lamenting about one of President Trump initiatives as conferring with a “top official.” This is significant because, as Allen asks, “Would an actual top official describe a peer as a ‘top official’?”
Lastly, Allen brings up a point that The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler brought up previously: Dao admitted the criteria for designating the author a “senior official” has been used a lot in the past. Given that the title “senior official” has been used for an indefinite number of government officials in the past by the Times and other news outlets, this again suggests the author isn’t exactly a household name.
Eek: “I feel that we followed a definition that has been used by our newsroom in the past.” This suggests Anonymous is not member of Cabinet or senior WH official, in which case it should not have been printed. 100s would qualify under this rubric. https://t.co/bKdBKf2TsX
— Glenn Kessler (@GlennKesslerWP) September 6, 2018
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The emergence of these clues means that it will be harder for the Trump administration to actually find the real author. This is needle-in-a-haystack territory. But the President is determined to discover the identity. He may not stop until he has a name.
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Coming soon “Clue!” the new detective game in which you get to find the rat in the White House. Was it; VP Pence with the cell phone in the green room? Complete with lie detector kit.
If it weren’t for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place. CLAPPER’S OWN CONFESSION
AMERICANS WE HAVE TO TAKE BACK OUR AMERICA FROM THE EVIL CRIMINAL ACTS OF DEMOCRATS………………………..TO SOLVE AMERICAS PROBLEMS MAKE THIS CHOICE WE THE PEOPLE’ HAVE THE POWER OF OUR VOICES AND OUR VOTES, TO VOTE OUT THE ENTIRE LYING,CORRUPT, TREASONOUS DEMOCRAT PARTY COME NOV 2018, VOTE TO MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN AND TO END ALL CORRUPTIONS IN WASHINGTON GOVERNMENT
@ LARRY:
ME THINKS YOU MEANT
“Maxipad USED toilet Waters.”?
WANDA SAYS: I STILL THINK IT’S THAT ATTENTION W HORE ABILIO ACOSTA!!EVEN IF IT ISN’T, HE’S STILL AN ATTENTION W HORE
Those of us who knows what she is, would be happy to see this loud mouth contract a nose running, snot sucking allergy to keep the Kleenex people happy and her big mouth sucking wind…….
I think this is just another attempt to distract Congress from their efforts to confirm Judge Cavanaugh and other important matters…just like Booker’s trolling. I don’t think the content of the op-ed needs to be proven or dis-proven. Just ignore it like a bothersome mosquito and concentrate on things that matter.
Well, somebody knows who it is and, in all things, the truth always ‘outs’ . . . ! And fools always get their day ‘in court’ . . . !
Semper Fi . . . !
Oh yeah . . . And Boss . . .BTW . . .we’ve ALWAYS & ALL WAYS . . . got your back . . . !
Bob Woodward was not even on Trumps staff. Woodward wrote it to push his book.
I think this is all another democrat hoax – 100% – meant to take the attention away from all the good news about the economy, jobs, unemployment, etc…detract, defuse, demean! For all we know, this was written by someone at the NYT…creating this “mystery”…!
This is not treason but is more correctly sedition. You have to have to provide information that leads to war. Sedition is just as bad. This is some pissed off mid grade GS who wants to feel important.
Probably the hag Hillary Rotten Clinton. Or maybe Maxipad toilet Waters.
Betcha the whole thing is a composite. There ‘may’ be one official involved to get the ball rolling, but it is likely there were multiple contributors, many of them NYT employees. A number of people wrote various parts, and the so-call ‘top official’ (who really isn’t) said, “Sure, go for it…I approve”, and that’s all there was to that.
“Senior level official” could be any idiot over the age of 65. LMAO at the lunacy of the commies on the left and their propaganda arm, the lame stream media.
A lot of words to say two. Fake News.
The NYT wrote the article just to screw up the works and to call attention away from the great things that are being done by this administration
Did Jason Blair write it? Has Jason been rehired at the Times?
First, a couple of YEARS of.. “RUSSIANS!!” Then, streams of negative articles, citing “anonymous.” Out comes Amarosa, claims yet no real.. anything? Woodward, citing “anonymous” comments from someone who.. “HEARD” someone say.. something?? Now, an “anonymous” OP-ED? In the NYT, (not exactly known for being particularly truthful about anything.) Do ANY of you get what is going on yet? Pay attention now……….. MIDTERMS!!!
This is exactly what the leftists and dems want to happen. Make up a false accusation get the pathetic NYT to publish it and what the Republicans and the administration scramble around with their heads cut off. How many times has this happened over the last few months? There is no Op-Ed author. Either the NYT made all of this up or someone associated with the dems made it up. When stuff like this suddenly comes out in public the administration should just emphatically deny it and then move on. Don’t speak of it again. Unless the NYT can produce a real person it all a bunch of BS. If the administration would stop responding to garbage like this then it would stop happening because nobody would pay any attention.
I believe the failing NYT concocted this whole thing….
Let the heads roll.
Does this really surprise anyone? It sounded fishy from the start.