White House official in NYT op-ed says staff working against Trump, sparks furor

WASHINGTON (AP) — A senior administration official sounded an alarm Wednesday about President Donald Trump’s “amorality” and “impetuous” leadership style in an unsigned opinion piece published in The New York Times. Trump swiftly responded, calling it a “gutless editorial” and “really a disgrace.”

The writer, claiming to be part of the “resistance” to Trump but not from the left, says, “Many Trump appointees have vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”

The article is headlined, “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”

It states: “Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.”

The newspaper described the author of the anonymous column as “a senior official in the Trump administration.”

The publication of the op-ed immediately triggered a wild guessing game as to the author’s identity on social media, in newsrooms and inside the West Wing, where officials were blindsided by its publication.

It was not immediately clear what, if any, steps were being taken by the White House to attempt to unmask the writer.

The column was released a day after the release of details from an explosive new book by longtime journalist Bob Woodward that raises concerns among the highest echelon of Trump aides about the president’s judgment.

The writer of the Times op-ed says Trump aides are aware of the president’s faults and “are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”

The piece adds: “The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows he is not moored to any discernible first principles that guide his decision making.”

“In addition to his mass-marketing of the notion that the press is the ‘enemy of the people,'” it charges, “President Trump’s impulses are generally anti-trade and anti-democratic.”

“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 also alleges “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment” because of the “instability” witnessed in the president. The 25th Amendment allows the vice president to take over if the commander in chief is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

The writer adds: “This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state.”

Trump lashed out at the Times for publishing the op-ed during an event with sheriffs at the White House on Wednesday afternoon.

“They don’t like Donald Trump and I don’t like them,” he said of the newspaper.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this article.