President Trump asked the New York Times Thursday evening if it intends to look into who anonymously submitted a recent op-ed about an alleged resistance within the Trump administration.
“Are the investigative ‘journalists’ of the New York Times going to investigate themselves – who is the anonymous letter writer?” Trump tweeted Thursday evening.
[Related: 7 points on the anonymous New York Times ‘resistance’ op-ed]
Are the investigative “journalists” of the New York Times going to investigate themselves – who is the anonymous letter writer?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 6, 2018
The statement — worded as a question — was less aggressive than another Trump issued Wednesday night, calling for the Manhattan-based news company to “turn over” the author’s name.
“Does the so-called ‘Senior Administration Official’ really exist, or is it just the Failing New York Times with another phony source?” Trump tweeted. “If the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
Cabinet officials and White House aides spent much of Thursday issuing individual statements that they were not the culprit, whom Trump has previously described as “gutless.”
The writer of the editorial, published Wednesday, claimed to the Times to be a senior official in the Trump administration. In the op-ed, he or she said there is an unofficial operation within the government that was working to ensure Trump — described as “erratic” — did not do irreversible harm to the country.
