An Open Letter to the NYT’s Anonymous Senior Trump Administration Official

Dear Anonymous,

This isn’t normal Washington politics anymore. It’s not a game. Your instantly infamous New York Times op-ed has painted us a picture of your character, and it’s not pretty.

Let’s put this as bluntly as possible: If you’re actively defying the president to pursue your own preferred policies, you’re subverting an American presidential election. If you’re withholding from the American people actual hard evidence of presidential unfitness, then you’re placing your own career before your country. If you’re lying or badly exaggerating the facts for the thrill of constant media contact or the approval of your peers, then you’re just despicable.

In Bob Woodward’s new book and your Times piece, Americans now face claims that the president’s staff often decides his orders are so outlandish that they must be ignored. We face claims that members of his own administration have sought to thwart his will in part by literally taking documents off his desk and hoping he doesn’t notice. And now there’s even a claim that Trump’s behavior was so outlandish and unstable that “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment.”

Allegations don’t get much more explosive than that.