Oh, hell, I’M probably richer than Trump, because my bank account has a positive balance.
The Weekly Standard has an analysis on who they think are top 4 likely and why (including linguistic analysis). They finger Kudlow, Hasset, Coats, and Pompeo as most likely.
Some rando nobody who works more than five miles from the building has ever heard of (and who won’t seem very “senior”), but who wants to maximize their value in the future. So not someone who has reached the likely pinnacle of their career.
Nope, Sessions doesn’t track for me. First, I simply don’t think Sessions is very intelligent, so as much as Trump despises and insults him, Sessions remains loyal. Second, he is at least complicit with Trump and probably majorly culpable in the disastrous child separation policy both he and Trump gleefully twirled their evil mustaches over until it backfired, as well as other initiatives he’s begun to roll back protections on civil rights while at the same time providing increased pathways to legal remedy for those who wish to discriminate against others on religious grounds that he would not have been able to without Trump. Sessions is a big part of a problem he truly sees as a solution.
I highly doubt the NYT would have run with such a piece from a “rando nobody…has ever heard of.”
Just in case the identity does ever come into the public, I’ll come down on Coats just for the sake of possible future ego points.
Put me down for one of the invisibles - a member of the White House staff, a butler, member of the Secret Service, or similar. Someone who sees everything and usually says nothing. I expect that the NYT is being deceptive in their description of the author.
If they were, then there would be a fair case for libel and Trump would sue them and they would lose.
So your contention is that they are bluffing and risking their entire business - since that would effectively destroy their credibility - on this.
He would have to be very stupid to sue anybody for libel, wouldn’t he? (Oh…) Would that not give the New York Times the right to haul in every single administration official who has ever dealt with Trump, and force them to give an honest accounting of his behavior? Not to mention, I think they’d probably get to depose the president himself, exposing him to all kinds of personal legal problems.
No, I said deceptive, not dishonest.
It’s going to end up being a “nobody.” And by “nobody,” I mean not a top-level name, nobody most people even here will recognize. High enough in position that The Times had a duty to run it because it shows there’s a virtual mutiny and separate government going on and they’d be derelict not to run it once they knew who it was.
I think the “lodestar” reference is a reverse Canary Trap, which is to say it was put there intentionally to make Trump distrust Pence. If Pence is willing to be bootlicker in chief he’s obviously easily manipulated but how does one break Trump’s hold on him? Easy, make Trump think he’s disloyal, Trump will take it from there. Once that seed is planted Trump cannot and will not let it go. And if that’s the case, should the cabinet decide it’s time to have that 25th amendment discussion again, they’ll be able to go to Pence and maybe just maybe Pence will be swayed. Come on Mike, you can do it. Just close your eyes and think of Mother.
I really think that if this is not some sort of planted story by the administration itself (and Trump seems genuinely to be having a meltdown over it); that we should take the Times editors at their word that the person responsible for the piece is indeed a ‘a senior official in the Trump administration’. For me this means most likely someone in the cabinet structure and much more likely from the national security and/or intelligence establishment such as Pompeo, Coats, Haspel, Mattis or Neilsen (or a deputy thereof), rather than from one of the economic or Treasury-related areas of responsibility. We can pretty much eliminate out of hand such worthies as Perry, DeVos and Carson, right?
It would be dishonest to call a Secret Service agent “a senior official in the Trump administration”. That would not be deceptive.
Robert Lighthizer
U.S. Trade Representative
Lighthizer was previously a deputy U.S. trade representative under President Reagan, and has since worked as a trade attorney in Washington, D.C.
When I go to the track, I pick longshots so that if they come through I win a bundle. So with that in mind, I’ll go to the $2 window and put my money on… Ivanka. Motive- get the 25th invoked so her old man can get indicted, she testifies against him in exchange for immunity. As Columbo might have said, it’s always the one you least suspect.
Then I’d take another $2 and put my money on Chief of Staff Kelly. Everyone knows he fucking hates his job but feels a duty to keep an eye on his batshit crazy boss.
Conway based on the fact her husband keeps going after Trump in public
PredictIt betting market bettors think it’s Coats – the betting line for “Will DNI Coats still be DNI at the end of 2018” went from ~90 to ~40 the day the Op-Ed came out. That seems like the best guess.
Mnuchin was one of my first guesses and I still think it’s a possibility. Because his family - excluding his golddigging attention whore wife- hates Trump. And they may have been pressuring him to take a stand. Of course, this situation has existed for a while and he never did anything before, so maybe not.
Pence would be a fun choice, but a bit too on the nose.
Sessions may agree with the sentiment but I don’t think he’s the writer. I don’t think he has time to hang around the Oval Office snatching papers off Trump’s desk, he’s too busy tirelessly working to oppress minorities and destroy our civil liberties.
I, as well as a lot of people, have always suspected that she has always hated Trump. But I don’t think she has the reflective insight to recognize that Trump’s policies are ungrounded by moral principles.
I think it’ll turn out to be Coates.
Yeah, I can’t see it being Pence. Or any of the military/ex-military folks. They would be too honor bound to do something outside the scope of the constitution like this.
Glad you started this thread, JC. I was going to do the same, mainly because I don’t know enough of the high level officials to know who it might be and I like mining the knowledge here.