The anonymous individual who claims to be a former senior member of the Trump administration is urging voters not to reelect the president in November.
The apparent official, who has not yet been identified, drew considerable attention and curiosity after a 2018 op-ed titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” The person followed that up with the bestselling 2019 book A Warning. On Monday, Politico revealed that the author has written a preface for a “2020 election edition” of the book that cautions about reelecting President Trump.
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The author said that the president’s reelection would result in “a continued downward slide into social acrimony, with the United States fading into the background of a world stage it once commanded, to say nothing of the damage to our democratic institutions.”
Tim Murtaugh, the Trump campaign’s communications director, accused the author of being part of the so-called “Deep State” and of using anonymity to turn a profit.
“It’s a D.C. insider trying to sell books to other D.C. insiders,” Murtaugh said in a statement. “Just more cowardly nonsense from someone from the Deep State not brave enough to put their name on their own words.”
The new edition of the book is set to be released Tuesday. While “anonymous” didn’t directly implore people to vote for Joe Biden, it is clear that the author wants another person in the Oval Office in January.
“Character must determine our vote, for it will determine the course of our nation,” the person wrote. “There should be no higher criterion to voters in this election — not sentiment or circumstance, not personality or political ideology, not egos or economics.”
Anonymous also called for a “season of candor,” in which former and current officials speak out about the administration. News of the preface comes the same day that former Department of Homeland Security chief of staff Miles Taylor, who served under Trump for two years, endorsed Biden.
The author’s identity has been one of much intrigue. The author said last year that he or she would reveal their identity before the election and in the soon-to-be-released preface said voters would know his or her’s name in “due course.”
Earlier this year, Trump claimed to know the anonymous official’s identity but declined to reveal the person’s name publicly.
“I know who it is,” Trump said at the time. “We won’t get into it. People know it’s a fraud. I know who it is, and I know who some of the leakers are.”
