Correction, September 7, 2018, 4:04 p.m.: Due to an error in the editing process, the original version of this post reported that Hassett had not denied being the author. Hassett had, in fact, issued such a denial. We regret the error.
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Speculation about the identity of the anonymous author of an op-ed article sharply critical of President Trump started almost immediately after it was published. Since then, several high-level administration officials have publicly denied they wrote and submitted the essay to the New York Times. Two of them were on our list of possible officials: Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state who said during his visit to the American Embassy in New Delhi Thursday the op-ed is “not mine,” and Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, who issued a statement calling speculation he or his principal deputy Sue Gordon had written the piece “patently false.”
Others who have denied, either themselves or through spokespeople, writing the op-ed, include: Vice President Mike Pence, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Energy Secretary Rick Perry, White House counsel Don McGahn, and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley. There’s a full accounting of denials here.
Another possible candidate we mentioned, National Economic Council director Larry Kudlow, has also denied authorship. “Of course not,” Kudlow said in a text message Thursday. “Silly piece. Really.” And Kevin Hassett, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, told Yahoo! News Friday morning that he “absolutely, 100 percent was not the author of that” and suggested the op-ed may not be “genuine.”
Update: In a Friday gaggle with reporters, President Trump said that the Department of Justice ought to look into who authored the anonymous op-ed. “It’s national security. I would say Jeff should be investigating who the author of that piece was because I really believe it’s national security.”
