The New York Times this past Wednesday published a highly controversial op-ed article by an unnamed senior administration official — a person who called President Donald Trump “erratic.”
The unsigned article — hotly debated these past few days in Washington, D.C., political and media circles, and across the country — also described a “quiet resistance” of Trump cabinet members who have talked about taking steps to remove him from office.
The article contained this headline: “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
It also said, “I work for the president but like-minded colleagues and I have vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
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So who wrote this?
As one can imagine — many people have many different theories. And panelists on “Morning Joe” this week on Friday said they believe Kellyanne Conway is behind the anonymous op-ed.
She responded strongly to this.
Panelist John Heilemann made his case by pointing to a column in Esquire.
“Credit where credit is due. Charlie Pierce on Esquire.com yesterday — he suggested his wife, who is probably very perspicacious — she detected a feminine tone in the op-ed, and she suggested it was Kellyanne Conway, and I had not even contemplated that,” said Heilemann Friday on “Morning Joe.”
“The more you think about it, the more Kellyanne Conway makes some sense. She’s very cagey. She’s the kind of person who would find out that Mike Pence used the word ‘lodestar’ a lot and put it in to try to pin it on Mike Pence,” he said.
Joe Scarborough then accused Kellyanne Conway of trying to distance herself from President Trump.
“At the end of the campaign she would, in the green room, around the set, talk about how she couldn’t wait for the campaign to be over, this was like her summer abroad,” claimed Scarborough.
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However — Conway addressed these theories and completely shot them down.
“I did not write the op-ed. Everything I think, I have the courage to say publicly,” she told the media.
She also criticized journalists’ obsession with the article.
“I’m just surprised that since you all love accountability and transparency and accuracy so much, that you would give so much authority to all this,” she said.
In an interview with Fox News host Laura Ingraham of “The Ingraham Angle” this week, Conway said the writer literally could be hundreds of people.
“That could be many people. There are, I think, thousands of political appointees, hundreds of folks that would qualify under that title alone.”
“I just have to correct the record. It’s not clear to us anyway that it’s somebody in the White House. It says ‘senior administration official’ — that could be many people. There are, I think, thousands of political appointees, hundreds of folks who would qualify under that title alone.”
She also said “presidents aren’t judged” by things going on at any one point in time — and that it could be a “huge problem” if this person is someone working in the West Wing.
Check out this video of the “Morning Joe” accusations:
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