A year later and the Trump official who wrote ‘I am the resistance’ remains a secret
I bet the FBI could have figured it out, given that they track down hackers, leakers, and spies, but the Tweeter-in-Chief can't work with them.Outside of a tiny circle of insiders, no one knows who wrote the instantly viral op-ed column about President Donald Trump that appeared in the New York Times last Sept. 5. Despite an informal White House investigation, plenty of outside sleuthing and a whole internet’s worth of guessing, his or her identity remains unknown.
The column – “ I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration ” – set social media aflame and cable chat shows ablabber with speculation about who the “senior official” behind it could be.
Kellyanne Conway? Mike Pompeo? Nikki Haley? Mike Pence? In the year since publication, dozens of names have been floated. All have denied it, sometimes ostentatiously. No one has stepped forward or conclusively been shown to be the author.
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Prompted by the president’s pique, the White House conducted a brief hunt for the writer. Aides reportedly compiled a list of suspects. There was talk of administering lie-detector tests or seeking sworn statements, though nothing seems to have come of it.
Then-White House press secretary Sarah Sanders tried a novel approach: She posted the Times’ main phone number on Twitter, and she urged people who “want to know” the identity of “this gutless loser” to call and ask the paper’s editors for his or her name. The phone campaign did not work, either; some people called the Times to praise it for running the column.
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In the year since, the op-ed itself has largely been forgotten, new sensations and scandals burying it daily like the sediment of successive civilizations. But questions remain: Is the author still working in the administration? What policies or initiatives did s/he actually thwart, if any?
And, of course, the big one: Whodunnit?
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The author of the Times op-ed could not be reached for comment.
