The article infuriated Trump – “TREASON?” he asked in a tweet – and set off speculation in Washington about the author.
Most of Trump’s cabinet members and several top White House officials had joined Vice-President Mike Pence in issuing public denials of authoring the op-ed by late Thursday afternoon.
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Defence Secretary James Mattis, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney all denied they had written the article.
So did US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley, National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.
A spokesman for the Central Intelligence Agency said Director Gina Haspel also denied authorship.
Even the Small Business Administration’s Linda McMahon tweeted out a denial, and Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, said through a spokeswoman he wasn’t the author.
An unidentified Justice Department spokesman was quoted by CNN saying Attorney General Jeff Sessions denied authorship, though Sessions’s spokeswoman declined to comment when contacted by Bloomberg.
CNN also reported denials from Labor Secretary Alex Acosta, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer.
White House Counsel Don McGahn told CBS News the op-ed wasn’t his doing.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, traveling in American Samoa, praised Trump in a tweet as a leader who would “charge up a hill under fire, not cower in a fox hole,” adding, “Whoever this author is should be embarrassed at both their dishonesty and their cowardice.”
Andrew Wheeler, acting administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, said through a spokesman that he “supports President Trump 100%” and “believes whoever wrote the op-ed should resign.”
And a spokeswoman for the FBI said the agency’s director, Christopher Wray, didn’t write the op-ed.
Vice-President Pence told reporters in Orlando, Florida, that “anyone who would write an anonymous editorial smearing this president, who’s provided extraordinary leadership for this country, should not be working for this administration.”
More of Trump’s cabinet members issued statements denying they were involved with the controversial op-ed: Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, National Security Agency director Paul Nakasone and Environmental Protection Agency administrator Andrew Wheeler.
First lady Melania Trump released a statement addressing the writer directly, saying “you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions.”
She bemoaned the use of unidentified sources in news reporting. “If a person is bold enough to accuse people of negative actions, they have a responsibility to publicly stand by their words and people have the right to be able to defend themselves,” the first lady said in the statement.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted a statement saying the NYT was “the only one complicit in this deceitful act” and urging the media to contact the outlet’s opinion desk directly by phone to inquire “who this gutless loser is.”
The NYT published an op-ed Wednesday by an anonymous US official, said that he or she, and others in government, have vowed to thwart the president’s “more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality,” wrote the person, identified by the Times only as a senior administration . “Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”
In response, Trump attacked the NYT in over the article’s publication, questioning whether the author even existed and citing national security as a reason for the newspaper to disclose the person’s name.
“If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!” Trump said on Twitter Wednesday night.
The following day, he blamed the so-called deep state and his political opponents, saying they are “going crazy.”
“The Deep State and the Left, and their vehicle, the Fake News Media, are going Crazy – & they don’t know what to do,” he said in tweet early Thursday. “The Economy is booming like never before, Jobs are at Historic Highs, soon TWO Supreme Court Justices & maybe Declassification to find Additional Corruption. Wow!”