WASHINGTON (AP) — The Latest on an anonymous New York Times opinion piece claiming there’s a “resistance” working within President Donald Trump’s administration (all times local):
10 p.m.
President Donald Trump says The New York Times’ decision to publish an op-ed from an anonymous Trump administration official has “backfired” and he has “picked up a lot of support” as a result.
Trump is again urging the Times to publish the name of the author “for the sake of our national security” and asking the newspaper’s reporters to investigate the identity of the writer.
The anonymous New York Times opinion piece published Wednesday claimed there’s a “resistance” working within President Donald Trump’s administration to thwart his most dangerous impulses.
Trump says during a rally in Billings, Montana, that “unelected deep state operatives” are a “threat to democracy itself.” But he adds that he is “really sad for the mainstream media.”
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9:10 p.m.
President Donald Trump is faulting The New York Times for publishing an anonymous op-ed from a senior administration official.
He claimed erroneously in an interview with Fox News on Thursday that “what they’ve done is virtually, you know, it’s treason, you could call it a lot of things.”
Trump says it was unfair for the person to pen the editorial because there’s no way to discredit it.
He’s suggesting it “may not be a Republican, it may not be a conservative, it may be a deep state person who has been there for a long time.”
Trump says his administration is a “well-oiled machine.”
The president spoke in an interview in front of supporters ahead of a rally in Billings, Montana.
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8:25 p.m.
Former Attorney General Eric Holder says an anonymous New York Times opinion piece criticizing President Donald Trump is “alarming” but “consistent with what we have seen in previous books, in previous stories about the dysfunction of this administration.”
Holder made the comments in Las Vegas Thursday while appearing with a Nevada gubernatorial candidate.
The Democrat says the focus should not be on which Trump administration official wrote the piece, but on its content.
Holder says it’s “also disturbing to think that you could have people who are not elected making decisions about the way in which this country is governed.”
He says Democrats need to win elections in 2018 to serve as a check on the president and Republicans need to put “country before party.”
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7:45 p.m.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren says if President Donald Trump’s Cabinet thinks he is unfit for office, they should remove him.
The Massachusetts Democrat made the comments in a fundraising email Thursday.
Warren points to an anonymous senior official who wrote a New York Times opinion piece claiming to be part of a “resistance” working “from within” to thwart Trump’s most dangerous impulses.
Warren says if senior officials believe the president is unfit, “they should stop hiding behind anonymous op-eds and leaking information to Bob Woodward” and “do what the Constitution demands they do: invoke the 25th Amendment and remove this president from office.”
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.”
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2:40 p.m.
A congressional ally of President Donald Trump says he thinks Congress could investigate which senior administration official wrote an anonymous New York Times opinion piece criticizing the president.
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., says he thinks the issue is “serious from a national security standpoint.” He is the chairman of a House subcommittee that oversees the president’s executive office and a founder of conservative Freedom Caucus.
Meadows, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he disagrees with House Speaker Paul Ryan, who said earlier in the day that he doesn’t know what role Congress would have in investigating the opinion piece. The anonymous author claims to be part of a “resistance” to Trump.
Meadows said that “we are looking at what is proper” to investigate but said he hasn’t yet taken “concrete steps.”
Many members of Trump Cabinet have denied writing the column.
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1:10 p.m.
Melania Trump says the anonymous author of a critical opinion piece about President Donald Trump is “sabotaging” the country through “cowardly actions.”
The first lady says in a statement Thursday that “if a person is bold enough to accuse people of negative actions, they have a responsibility to publicly stand by their words and people have the right to be able to defend themselves.”
She directly addresses the unidentified senior administration official who is said to have written the piece published by The New York Times: “To the writer of the oped – you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions.”
The anonymous author wrote that Trump administration officials are actively working to prevent Trump from carrying out his worst instincts.
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12:30 p.m.
House Speaker Paul Ryan says whoever wrote an anonymous New York Times opinion column claiming officials in President Donald Trump’s administration are preventing Trump from carrying out his worst instincts is “living in dishonesty” and shouldn’t work for him.
Ryan said Thursday he understands Trump’s tweeting and “unconventional tactics” bother people. But the Wisconsin Republican says Trump is producing “good results.”
The Times’ opinion piece is attributed to a senior administration official, who writes that some officials are acting as “adults in the room” and frustrating Trump from following through on his “worst inclinations.”
Trump has called the editorial gutless and a disgrace and says the Times should turn the writer over to the government.
The Times says publishing the essay anonymously was “the only way to deliver an important perspective” to its readers.
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9:45 a.m.
Add the director of national intelligence to the list of Trump administration officials who say they didn’t write the anonymous opinion piece in The New York Times that said an internal “resistance” was working to thwart some of President Donald Trump’s efforts.
Dan Coats says speculation that either he or his top deputy wrote the op-ed is “patently false. We did not.”
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7:05 a.m.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo (pahm-PAY’-oh) has denied writing an anonymous New York Times opinion piece that said an internal “resistance” was working to thwart some of President Donald Trump’s efforts.
Pompeo spoke to reporters after a Thursday meeting in New Delhi with top Indian officials and said, “It’s not mine.”
He says “It shouldn’t surprise anyone” that the New York Times chose to print “such a piece.” He says if the piece actually was written by a top U.S. official “they should not well have chosen to take a disgruntled, deceptive, bad actor’s word for anything.”
Pompeo accuses the media of trying to undermine the Trump administration and says he finds it “incredibly disturbing.”
The Times says publishing the essay anonymously is “the only way to deliver an important perspective” to its readers.
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12:25 a.m.
An opinion piece in The New York Times by an anonymous senior administration official claiming to be part of a “resistance” working “from within” to thwart President Donald Trump’s “worst inclinations” has set off a wild guessing game on the author’s identity.
In an extraordinary move, Trump tweeted Wednesday that if “the GUTLESS anonymous person does indeed exist, the Times must, for National Security purposes, turn him/her over to government at once!”
White House officials didn’t immediately respond to a request to elaborate on Trump’s call for the writer to be turned over to the government.
Two people familiar with the matter say Trump has demanded that aides identify the leaker. The two were not authorized to speak publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
