‘Senior’ official doesn’t mean anonymous NYT writer is close to Trump

Yet, as everyone from former Hillary Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri to the Washington Post’s David Nakamura to Fox News’s Brit Hume point out in rare bipartisan fashion, “senior administration official” could apply to hundreds and even more than 1,000 people. 

 

Fwiw, based on my experience with NYT sourcing rules for Administration officials, this person could easily be someone most of us have never heard of & more junior than you’d expect. Like a deputy at legislative affairs or NEC.

— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) September 6, 2018

Most DC journalists, incl. me, have quoted a “senior administration official” in stories. But I feel as though an op-ed like this should have an editor’s note explaining what an SAO is. There are 1,212 Senate-confirmed positions, incl. 640 ‘key’ jobs https://t.co/9WNva10ZOr https://t.co/CySe7znom1

— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) 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

 

No matter: We’re already seeing some in the media go the full Alex Jones in attempting to figure out — with zero basis whatsoever — who the anonymous writer may be, with the most egregious being CNN political editor-at-large Chris Cillizza. 

 

In listing 12 names of people with “motive,” in Cillizza’s latest CNN.com piece, the only thing missing is that the writer was Mrs. Peacock in the kitchen with the candlestick or Mr. Green in the library with the lead pipe.

12 senior Trump administration officials with motive to write The New York Times op-ed | Analysis by @CillizzaCNN https://t.co/7Q2WvZHWEd pic.twitter.com/IbuQtd9clr

— CNN International (@cnni) September 6, 2018

So here’s the question: Should the Times have narrowed down the actual governmental level of the writer in a way that at least tells the reader if this person was indeed as close to the president as they portray, unintentionally or otherwise? That doesn’t, of course, mean giving away obvious clues that would reveal identify. But, as the Post’s Nakamura asks, does this person actually work in the White House? The National Security Council? A federal agency? On domestic or foreign affairs? 

As the Post’s Dana Milbank pointed out years ago: “The only people who can’t be senior administration officials are the interns.” 

Narrowing down the writer’s role in the administration to at least a place or department is a fair ask of the Times, which clearly reaps benefits from the ambiguity of “senior administration official.” But such ambiguity leads to the kind of dangerous speculation so many see from some quarters of the media on a daily basis, which only leads to increased cynicism about the institution. 

 

Another note regarding one more small but telling error by the Times: In one tweet from its official Twitter handle, the paper appears to have revealed the gender of the anonymous source, as noted by Bloomberg’s Jennifer Jacobs: 

 

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

And, in a related story, Jacobs reports that several sources tell her “they have doubts the anonymous senior administration official works in the West Wing.”

Several sources now saying they have doubts the anonymous senior admin official works in the West Wing — more probably works elsewhere, in one of the departments. @KellyannePolls on Fox says “hundreds of folks that would qualify for that title alone.”

— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) September 6, 2018

If true, that’s a pretty big deal. And if that is indeed the case, the person behind the op-ed shows his (or her) hand in terms of access, or lack thereof, he (or she) had to the president:

“Meetings with him veer off topic and off the rails, he engages in repetitive rants, and his impulsiveness results in half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions that have to be walked back,” the writer claims.
 
Yet, instead of providing personal examples to support this claim, the writer pivots to what he only heard from another unnamed official. In other words, he wasn’t in the room, didn’t attend the meeting and maybe hasn’t attended any.

“‘There is literally no telling whether he might change his mind from one minute to the next,’ a top official complained to me recently,” the writer says of the president, adding that the “top official” — which apparently shouldn’t be confused with “senior administration official” — was “exasperated by an Oval Office meeting at which the president flip-flopped on a major policy decision he’d made only a week earlier.”

Then there’s the question of timing: Did this person — or “gutless coward,” as the president referred to him on Wednesday — just suddenly happen to have an epiphany about getting all of this off his chest via the New York Times? Or is he a primary source for the Woodward book, which comes out in less than a week, and wanted to build on the attention said book is already receiving in forming a sustainable narrative?  

In the end, this sort of tactic only plays into Trump’s argument around people inside the government working against him who cannot be trusted. Talk to any Trump supporter, and they are likely to say this op-ed not only doesn’t change their mind but actually reinforces their mistrust in the establishment. 

“The erratic behavior would be more concerning if it weren’t for unsung heroes in and around the White House. Some of his aides have been cast as villains by the media,” the anonymous writer says, in patting himself on the back for, in his eyes, saving the country from Trump. “But in private, they have gone to great lengths to keep bad decisions contained to the West Wing, though they are clearly not always successful.”  

National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, no fan of the president, sums up why the statement above is a fruitless endeavor to go down this path. “If you’re part of a secret cabal to contain the president’s erratic behavior, it seems counterproductive to notify the erratic president about it. What better way to fuel his paranoia and his persecution complex?” Goldberg asked in a Wednesday column.

The New York Times called its decision to print this op-ed anonymously as a “rare step.” Politically, it’s unprecedented.