Trump Lists Deep State 12 Suspects In Hunt For 'Treasonous' Op-ed Writer
News comes as the President levelled a new attack on Bob Woodward's book
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President Donald Trump has launched the hunt for the senior leaker who wrote in the anonymous New York Times op-ed, as reports confirm the has a list of 12 suspects.
The news comes as the President leveled a new attack on Bob Woodward's book, which claims the White House "is in chaos" as senior aides scurrying to thwart the president's worst impulses.
An op-ed, written by an anonymous New York Times writer who proposed to be a "senior official within the Trump administration" has already spectacularly backfired from both sides.
Everyone from President Donald Trump to Glenn Greenwald to the Los Angeles Times has labeled the author everything from a coward, to treasonous, to nonexistent.
The author claimed to be working within the Trump administration and allegedly working against 'Trump collusion' with other senior officials in what they called a "resistance inside the Trump administration."
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'I don’t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up.
The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts - and our country is doing GREAT!' Trump said.
The DM reports: Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has suggested lie detector tests for senior aides in just one of the aggressive options to try to identify the author from within his own administration who charged Trump with holding 'off the rails' meetings, filled with 'repetitive rants' that produce 'half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions.'
Another tactic being floated is to force aides to sign sworn affidavits stating that they weren't behind the leaks.
FBI Director Chris Wray is the latest top official to deny being behind the devastating op-ed, after Vice President Mike Pence and a raft of cabinet secretaries and senior aides said they didn't do it.
Top aides have already been forced to sign non-disclosure agreements, so it is unclear what additional weight an affidavit might carry.
An outside advisor said the White House has winnowed down the list of suspects to just a dozen, the New York Times reported.
Trump's rebuttal of the Woodward book about the way he comes off in direct quotes cuts to the storied author's unique methods.
In the book's forward, Woodward notes that he has done hundreds of hours of interviews, conducted on 'deep background.'
Woodward writes in the forward to the book, which was obtained by DailyMail.com: 'When I have attributed exact quotations, thoughts or conclusions to the participants, that information comes from the person, a colleague with direct knowledge, or from meeting notes, personal diaries, files and government or personal documents.'
The Woodward book is a scam. I don’t talk the way I am quoted. If I did I would not have been elected President. These quotes were made up. The author uses every trick in the book to demean and belittle. I wish the people could see the real facts - and our country is doing GREAT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2018
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The book contains numerous eye-catching quotes from the president in private settings that show him in a different light from those who know his verbiage from public events.
For example, Trump unleashes a slew of expletives when Jared Kushner and Steve Bannon ask him to cut a $50 million check to his campaign in one scene in the book.
'No way,' Trump responded. 'F*** that. I'm not doing it 'Where the f***'s the money? Where's all this money from these [donor] guys? Jared, you're supposed to be raising all this money. Not going to do it.'
In a post-election scene in the book, Trump bashes a South Korea trade deal – but uses its technical acronym in a way that would be unfamiliar at any Trump rally.
'I'm tired of these arguments!' Trump is quoted as saying at a meeting. 'I don't want to hear about it anymore. We're getting out of KORUS.'
Trump said Thursday that an anonymous op-ed slamming him in The New York Times was an act of treason, asserting something he has only written with a question mark to date.
