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Anonymous, the previously unidentified “senior Trump official” behind an explosive opinion piece and revealing book, finally revealed his identity. Photo / Getty
Anonymous, the top Trump official who published an explosive opinion piece and eye-opening book from within the administration, finally revealed his identity, six days before the presidential election.
His name is Miles Taylor and he is the former chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security.
The Trump campaign will likely breathe a sigh of relief that Anonymous didn’t turn out to be someone with a higher profile.
Also softening any potential blow to the president is the fact that Taylor has already publicly criticized Trump since he left the administration.
He endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in August.
Taylor has issued a statement explaining his decision to criticize Trump from within the administration without identifying himself.
“More than two years ago, I published an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times about the dangerous presidency of Donald Trump, while he was under his command. He responded with a short but forceful tweet: ‘BETRAYAL?'” He said today .
“Trump sees personal criticism as subversive.
“We do not owe the president our silence. We owe him and the American people the truth.
“Make no mistake: I’m a Republican and I wanted this president to succeed. That’s why I entered the Administration with John Kelly, and that’s why I stayed as chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security.
“But too often, in times of crisis, I have seen Donald Trump demonstrate that he is a man without character, and his personal flaws have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in the loss of American lives.
“I witnessed Trump’s inability to do his job over the course of two and a half years. Everyone saw it, although most were hesitant to speak out for fear of retaliation.
“So when I left the Administration, I wrote A Warning, a character study of the current commander-in-chief, and a warning to voters that he wasn’t as bad as he looked inside the Trump Administration, he was worse.
“While I claim sole authorship of the work, the sentiments expressed in it were widely shared among officials at the highest levels of the federal government. In other words, Trump’s own lieutenants were alarmed at its instability.
“There has been a lot of talk about the fact that these writings were published anonymously. The decision was not easy, I struggled with it and I understand why some people find it questionable to impose such serious charges against a sitting president under the cover of anonymity. But my reasoning was straightforward and I stick with it.
“Issuing my criticisms without attribution forced the president to answer them directly on their merits or not answer them at all, rather than creating distractions through petty insults and nicknames. He wanted the focus to be on the arguments themselves.
“At that point I asked him, ‘What will you do when there is no one to attack, just an idea?’ We got the answer. He was unhinged. And the ideas stood by themselves.
“To be clear, writing these works was not about an eminence (they were published without attribution), nor was it about money (I declined a considerable monetary advance and promised to donate most of the proceeds), and it was not about elaborating a reckoning ‘tell everything’ (my focus was on the president himself and his character, not on denigrating former colleagues).
“However, I made it clear that I was not afraid to criticize the president under my name. In fact, I promised to do so. That is why I have already spoken during the general elections. I have tried to convey the best I can, based on my own experience. How Donald Trump has made America less secure, less secure in his identity and destiny, and less united He has responded in predictable ways, with personal attacks designed to obscure the underlying message that he is unfit for the office he occupies.
“However, Trump has failed to bury the truth.”
Taylor was asked directly about Anonymous’s identity during an interview on CNN in August. He lied.
“Do you know who it is?” asked host Anderson Cooper.
“I’m not,” Taylor replied.
“And look, that was a board game in Washington DC where a lot of people were trying to think about who it could be. I have my own thoughts about who it could be.”
“Aren’t you Anonymous?” Cooper asked him directly.
“I wear a mask for two things, Anderson, Halloween, and pandemics. So no,” Taylor said.
Speculation about the identity of Anonymous exploded in 2018 after it published an op-ed in The New York Times, alleging there was a “resistance” within the Trump administration working against the president’s wishes.
“To be clear, ours is not the popular ‘resistance’ from the left. We want the administration to succeed and we believe that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous,” Taylor wrote at the time. .
“But we believe that our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a way that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
“That is why many Trump appointees have pledged to do everything they can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Trump’s most misguided impulses until he leaves office.
“The root of the problem is the president’s amorality. Anyone who works with him knows that he is not bound by any discernible first principle to guide his decision-making.
Although he was elected a Republican, the president shows little affinity for the ideals long championed by conservatives: free minds, free markets, and free people. At best, he has invoked these ideals in scripted scenarios. At worst of the cases, he has attacked them directly. “
He went on to write a book as well, called A Warning. That was published last year.
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