The author of the anonymous September 2018 New York Times op-ed disparaging President Donald Trump has just exposed his own identity.
The New York Times had long claimed that the editorial came from a “senior official” in the Trump administration who was part of an internal campaign to undermine the president and his policies. But according to Breitbart, the once-anonymous official has now come forward — and his true identity has left many underwhelmed.
Miles Taylor, a former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has admitted to writing the anonymous op-ed, in which he claimed that “many of the senior officials in [Trump’s] own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
“I would know,” Taylor wrote, previously anonymously. “I am one of them.”
“Anonymous” unmasked
Taylor’s op-ed — as well as a subsequent book — got a lot of attention at the time, with many speculating it could have come from high-ranking officials like former Chief of Staff John Kelly or even former White House adviser Kellyanne Conway. But that was far from the case: according to Breitbart, Taylor was “chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security under Kirstjen Nielsen.”
He later “resigned from the administration and took a job with Google before taking leave to publicly endorse former Vice President Joe Biden for president and campaign against Trump,” Breitbart reported. He’s also now a CNN contributor, the outlet notes.
Taylor had denied being the author of the op-ed as recent as two months ago, when he was asked directly about it by CNN’s Anderson Cooper, as Breitbart reported. Writing in a statement this week, Taylor tried to explain why he kept his opinions anonymous for more than two years.
“Issuing my critiques without attribution forced the President to answer them directly on their merits or not at all, rather than creating distractions through petty insults and name-calling,” he wrote. “I wanted the attention to be on the arguments themselves.”
“A liar and a coward”
With Taylor finally out of the shadows, it hasn’t taken long for Trump insiders to share their thoughts on the “bombshell” revelation. “This low-level, disgruntled former staffer is a liar and a coward who chose anonymity over action and leaking over leading,” White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said, according to Politico.
It was a sentiment shared by White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows — who called Taylor’s revelation a “monumental embarrassment” — as well as Trump campaign spokesman Hogan Gidley, who described Taylor as “just another standard-issue arrogant, Washington, D.C. swamp bro who loved President Trump until he figured out he could try to make money by attacking him.”
President Trump himself also weighed in with a series of tweets on Wednesday and Thursday.
….associated with this FRAUD on the American people!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 28, 2020
The post Former DHS staffer reveals he was behind the New York Times' anonymous anti-Trump op-ed first appeared on Conservative Institute.
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