If there has ever been a more corrupt, dysfunctional, chaotic, back-biting administration in history I don’t know what it is.
Recall that “Anonymous” op-ed and the book that came out recently by the same author. Apparently, people inside and outside the White House are using the anonymity of the author to target a true Trumper they don’t like for her policy positions.
Evidently, she’s a Middle East “expert” on the National Security Council who is actually an art historian. Ok. The publisher of the book has been forced to come forward and deny that she is the author because all the “whispering” about her identity has her on the verge of losing her job:
The literary agents for the senior Trump administration official who penned an anonymous New York Times op-ed and best-selling book are breaking their silence to swat down a whisper campaign pinning the unnamed writings on a top National Security Council aide — citing “truly bizarre circumstances” that forced their hand.
“Over the past weeks and months, there has been continual speculation as to the identity of the author known as Anonymous,” Javelin co-founder Matt Latimer, who brokered the book deal for “A Warning,” plans to say in a forthcoming statement obtained by POLITICO. “We have heard various theories and conclusions based on ‘solid reporting.’ We have politely declined to confirm or deny them. That was a decision we made in deference to our author and we had intended to stick by it. Now truly bizarre circumstances have forced us to change that position.”
Old timers will know what I’m talking about when I say that everyone on the right is a kerning expert. Their amateur detective work on this one is really something:
The Trump White House has been a hotbed of palace intrigue since its earliest days, and the whispers against Coates are only the latest in a string of similar campaigns. National Security Council officials have watched in horror as pro-Trump commentators outside the administration have channeled gossip and innuendo purporting to come from inside the White House. Many of the people targeted were career government staffers detailed to the NSC from other agencies, whereas Coates is a political appointee who joined the administration early on.
The purported identity of the unnamed author has been a potent weapon in the White House’s endless internal battles. At times, some have claimed to out their colleagues as Anonymous, who claimed in the op-ed to be part of a “resistance” of like-minded individuals inside the Trump administration. But the official’s name remains a closely guarded secret, and it’s not even clear whether he or she remains in government.
Coates, a former aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), is a Middle East specialist with a nontraditional background for a top foreign policy hand. She’s an art historian and the author of a 2016 book on the Western canon, David’s Sling: A History of Democracy in Ten Works of Art. In a review, the Washington Post’s Carlos Lozada called it “an unusual book, enjoyable in its visuals and prose, even if not fully persuasive in its arguments.” Coates, who once taught at the University of Pennsylvania, has a doctorate in Italian Renaissance art. She declined to comment.
Latimer and his co-founder, Keith Urbahn, are former aides to Donald Rumsfeld, and some allies of the president had pointed out that Coates helped the defense secretary write his memoirs, Known and Unknown. She also once blogged under a pseudonym for Redstate, a conservative website whose leading figures have at times been critical of the president, and published her book with Javelin’s help.
That’s the “evidence” they have for their claim.
The publisher’s response is unequivocal. If they’re lying, they’ve ruined their reputations:
“This ‘investigation’ is based on innuendo, the irrelevant fact that she once worked with this agency on an art history book, and otherwise unprovable allegations — which are unprovable because they are not true,” Latimer will say. “The fact that there is no real evidence has not stopped a whisper campaign against her to members of the press in the hope that someone would write a story. Nor has it stopped uninformed idiots from trying to out her on Twitter on Pavlovian command. As a result, her career is now at risk.”
Latimer’s expected statement on Anonymous describes his decision to come forward as motivated by a need not to allow “people of ill will to frame Dr. Coates or assign views to her that she has never expressed to us.”
“To be very clear so there is no chance of any misunderstanding: Dr. Coates is not Anonymous,” Latimer will say. “She does not know who Anonymous is. We have never discussed Anonymous or the book, A WARNING, with her prior to its publication. She did not write it, edit it, see it in advance, know anything about it, or as far we know ever read it.”
“We all have arrived at a truly dark and disturbing point in politics,” the statement continues. “A time when lies and conspiracy theories substitute for truth while those who know better say nothing out of fear of reprisals. And it is ironic if unsurprising that those who constantly whine about witch hunts are currently pursuing yet another one — without a single care for an innocent woman’s reputation, family, or wellbeing.”
Yes. That’s very true. Maybe Anonymous should come forward then, as should every other person in the White House who has a conscience.
Unfortunately, the US Senate has just endorsed Trump’s deviant, toxic administration because they got some judges and some tax cuts. If those people, who represent a separate co-equal branch of government don’t have any integrity, why should anyone else in Trump’s government?