Media

Drudge labels official in anonymous NYT op-ed a White House ‘saboteur’

by Joe Concha - 09/05/18 5:18 PM ET

The conservative Drudge Report on Wednesday labeled the person identified as a senior Trump administration official who penned an anonymous op-ed blasting President Trump as a “saboteur inside the White House.”

Drudge, the popular aggregation news site that has been largely supportive of the president going back to his campaign, included the label as its lead headline on Wednesday afternoon, shortly after The New Yew York Times pub lished the op-ed.

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In the op-ed, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” the official calls into question the president’s mental health while saying that they and others in the administration are working to “thwart” Trump’s “worst inclinations.”

“To be clear, ours is not the popular ‘resistance’ of the left,” it reads. “We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous.”

“But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic,” the unnamed official wrote.

The Times said in disclaimer on top of the op-ed that the writer’s identity is “known” to the newspaper, but said the official requested that the piece be published anonymously. The newspaper stated that the official’s “job would be jeopardized” if the person was identified.

The newspaper explained its extraordinary decision to publish the piece without naming the author, saying, “We believe publishing this essay anonymously is the only way to deliver an important perspective to our readers.”

The decision was met with some criticism from other media members on Twitter:

Granting anonymity to a source is one thing. Granting anonymity to an op-ed contributor is a whole different ball of wax. https://t.co/CUMvu2T1wl

— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) September 5, 2018

Also what better way for the NYT to give him his “Deep State” talking point. Great work team.

— Stephen Miller (@redsteeze) September 5, 2018

Yeah, publishing anonymous op-eds won’t embolden the “fake news” complaint crowd AT ALL

— Kevin Madden (@KevinMaddenDC) September 5, 2018

RE: the NYT anonymous editorial. The federal government always has been honeycombed with officials resistant to this and all GOP administrations. They are government workers and nearly all Democrats. And don’t be misled by the words “senior officials.” There are loads of them.

— Brit Hume (@brithume) September 5, 2018

If this is true, is the goal of this op-ed to trigger a massive purge of those restraining Trump? Because that’s what will happen. Idiocy. https://t.co/v109YQanKW

— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) September 5, 2018

So basically: Times reporters now must try to unearth the identity of an author that our colleagues in Opinion have sworn to protect with anonymity? https://t.co/wj2nKmDHz9

— jodikantor (@jodikantor) September 5, 2018

Or is the entire newspaper bound by the promise of anonymity? I don’t think so, but this is fascinating. Not sure if there’s precedent.

— jodikantor (@jodikantor) September 5, 2018

Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs noted that the Times’s official Twitter feed may have revealed the gender of the source who wrote the op-ed.

“NYT tweet suggests the anonymous senior admin official is a man — ‘he,'” she tweeted.

NYT tweet suggests the anonymous senior admin official is a man — “he.”

The official complains Trump “engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions.” https://t.co/HsNLRTCK5d pic.twitter.com/6GRD4Lbdbn

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 5, 2018