Taking Bets: Who is the 'insider' who wrote the NYT Opinion Piece?

Politics & Elections
141

I am assuming that the name of Deep Stoat will eventually become public and that the NY Times will assume the same. While every newspaper, if they are honest, will make errors and print corrections, they claim that this one has been carefully researched and everything they said is true. Otherwise, their credibility would be shot to hell and it might even cost them their business. And for what? Fifteen minutes of fame?

Therefor I am assuming that everything they said is accurate. The writer is a high administration official who can be fired and who is in a position to actually thwart Trump. This lets out Pence, some random undersecretary, de Vos, Carson and some others. Yesterday, the Votemaster printed a list of 20 people who have denied writing it: Electoral-vote.com. One name is conspicuously missing from that list is John Kelly. That’s where my vote is going.

It has been suggested that all the possible people will be ordered to undergo lie detector tests. A more interesting possibility is that every white house employee will be required to sign a notarized statement that they didn’t. That way, when their name is eventually revealed they can be charged with perjury. Perhaps an FBI agent can be called in to take their statements. thereby risking 14 days in prison.

142

Isn’t Moscow where the real WH power is? You may have inadvertently stumbled on the answer!

Getting something notarized makes you liable for perjury?

I was wondering if Congress could call a bunch of “senior WH officials” to testify under oath as to whether or not they were the one. Of course, some could plead the 5th.

143

I wouldn’t hold my breath. It took 30 years for Mark Felt to out himself.

144

Having a statement notarized doesn’t touch on the truth or falsehood of the statement. It just certifies that the person who’s signed it is authentic.

145

I’d never heard of Felt myself. But I kind of always thought that Deep Throat was L. Patrick Gray, who was Felt’s boss. So, ballpark there. There is a pretty persuasive case to be made on this one for Dan Coats who, at 75, has no ambitions about future government employment, is an “old line” Republican and clearly hasn’t liked some of what he’s seen.

146

Trump doesn’t seem quite sure the insider really is “anonymous”.

147

Isn’t the issue with authorship really that almost literally anybody in the White House (“the *best *people”) could have done it, even (and maybe especially) those who have denied it the most stoutly? This isn’t a mere pout, it’s a cry for help. If it weren’t credible, consistent with everything else we’ve come to know about the Very Stable Genius, it would be easy to dismiss, and easy to identify the author. But it is.

“Who wrote it?” is just a diversion. The problem is the truth of what was written.

148

Yup. This park keeps getting overlooked.

149

But what is there to say about that other than “Yup, the president is crazy but the GOP is milking him for tax cuts and judges so what can we do”.

150

Yo, man
(Yo)
Open up, man
(Yeah, what do you want, man?)
The President just caught me
(You let him catch you?)
I don’t know how I let this happen
(With who?)
The New York Times, ya know?
Man, I don’t know what to do
(Say it wasn’t you)
Alright

Mr. Trump came in and he caught me red-handed
Creeping with the media
Picture this he was gonna go golfing
I was curled up on the bathroom floor
How could I forget that I was
Working for a orange turkey
All this time he was standing there
He never took her eyes off me

But he caught me in the paper (It wasn’t me)
Saw me on Don Lemon (It wasn’t me)
I even posted to my Twitter (It wasn’t me)
He even caught me on camera (It wasn’t me)

151

The purpose behind the letter holds the clue as to who wrote it.

I don’t buy the idea that the purpose is to make Trump go insane strawberry-Cain Mutiny-style. That could be accomplished in any number of ways much safer than this. Woodward’s book is doing the crazy-making well enough anyway.

It’s a mistake not to factor in the affect the midterms might have on the author’s motive. Trump is not going anywhere any time soon, but many in the GOP are in a fight for their seats right now; the Republican Party, at least in part, may be who the author is trying to save. This suggests to me that the author is a politician, who cares more about image and electability, than a career public servant. Just keeping their head down as they hog tie Trump quietly has not helped rescue the Republican’s image from Trump’s branding, so the op-ed is a desperate move to do that, I think.

What senior officials have a history of running for political office and might see themselves as saviors of the Party’s “good name”? Those folks would be my first round of suspects.

Then, after considering that the op-ed might be an attempt to dissociate the author (not just the GOP) from Trump’s ugliness, there’s another piece of analysis to worth through. Who is the most at risk of being seen as Trump enabler, due to their position, reputation, and history in the WH? Whose clout is the most at risk by being seen as a Trump enabler? Who stands to lose the most if their clout is tainted at the same time it becomes necessary for them to have it?

Look at Conway who I believe fails the test. She sold her soul to the devil a long ass time ago; she’s so in deep she knows what the history books are going to say about her and she doesn’t care. The not caring is how she’s been effective at lying and spinning so well. So why would she a pen a letter aimed at showing there are people in the WH who do care? It’s out of her character.

Halley and Huntsman have less to worry about than others in being seen as Trump enablers. Halley in particular has openly contradicted him, and Huntsman isn’t exactly seen as a trusted Trump advisor.

Kelly and Mattis are not politicians. They are Republicans but they haven’t made their careers by representing the party or concerning themselves with its platform. I think they would’ve been just fine working quietly behind the scenes to control Trump without going to the NYT to advertise it.

Dan Coats counts as a politician because he was a senator before joining the administration. But, as National Intelligence Director, I don’t see him as someone who would risk outing himself with an op-ed like this. Trump is already poisoning the public against the intelligence community on an unrelenting basis; if he were to be unmasked as the author, Coats would have to know that it wouldn’t just be him paying the price. He has also not hid the fact that Russia meddled with the election, which means it should be clear to all that he is not Trump’s lackey. He has nothing to prove to the public by writing this letter.

So I think it’s Pence, as I’ve said before. His reputation and political currency is most at stake, he’s the most at risk of being seeing as Trump’s partner in crime (so he has motive to show otherwise), and the well-being of the Republican Party is of most interest to him because of the prospect of being POTUS one day.

152

I don’t think it’s anybody with a military history like Mattis. Those guys are inculcated with the “chain of command” concept. They will follow any order, regardless of its inherent stupidity, as long as they don’t view it as illegal. Staying on board but doing an op-ed like this one just isn’t part of the military mindset.

153

Fred Clark:

Clark likes Mark Silk’s theory that it’s Dan Coats, with an assist from Michael Gerson: In search of Trump's Deep Throat

154

Michael Caputo, former Trump campaign director, acts pretty sure he knows who it is. He doesn’t name the name (“my attorney tells me that’s a bad idea”), but it’s someone of Deputy Secretary rank or higher, who has purged his/her* department of all Trump supporters, and who has been asked (and answered No) by the President if he/she is the traitor. (“These kind of people leave a trail of crumbs when they’re trying to deceive.”) * - Near the end of the interview he refers to the Anonymous as “she.” But was that just misdirection?

According to Caputo, the intent was to help the D’s in the coming election. The op-ed was “ghost-written,” the choice of words to thrown suspicion on Pence, Mattis and Kelly was “diabolical gaslighting.”

Caputo may be blowing smoke (or smoking something), but it does seem to me that smart insiders would have some pretty good guesses of who the anonymous coward/traitor/hero/gaslighter might be.

155

Gotta love how Caputo called Trump’s base The Deplorables non-ironically.

156

BS, the intent was to reassure republicans that there were grown ups still looking out for their interests and it is ok to keep voting GOP.

157

Caputo left Trump’s employ well before the election and can honestly be described as a professional bullshit artist. I see no reason to give his speculation any weight whatsoever.

158

The nerve of that man to inject the concept of dishonesty into the Trump White House!

159

I think of all the theories that have been floated, “the op-ed was written to hand Democrats the midterm elections!” from Caputo is the most desperate. To believe that, we would need to completely overlook all the songs of praises for conservative policies in that letter. Yeah dude, someone who thinks that tax plan was good for the country wants to put Dems in power. Makes perfect sense.

160

Ok, since we aren’t betting any real money, I’ll go with Bob Woodward himself, as a way to publicize his new book. He’s made stuff up before–the deathbed convo with Casey–and he’s probably got enough pull to get someone on the Times to go along.

I am betting zero dollars on this, as I know it’s a low probability scenario. But that’s my prediction.