CNN’s Chris Cillizza has a new piece out speculating on which “senior administration official” wrote the now infamous Op-Ed in New York Times:
12 senior Trump administration officials with motive to write The New York Times op-ed | Analysis by @CillizzaCNN https://t.co/7Q2WvZHWEd pic.twitter.com/IbuQtd9clr
— CNN International (@cnni) September 6, 2018
The 13 names are (he added one after publication) Don McGahn, Dan Coats, Kellyanne Conway, John Kelly, Kirstjen Nielsen, Jeff Sessions, James Mattis, James Mattis, Mike Pence, Nikki Haley, Javanka and Melania Trump.
And here’s journalist Yashar Ali calling this speculation “absolutely absurd” and even “dangerous”:
This is absolutely absurd…and I think it’s dangerous for a news organization to actually list names and reasons why they have a motivation to do this. Either report it out or don’t speculate https://t.co/DDP1U79rrf
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) September 6, 2018
Cillizza also doesn’t even consider that it’s someone nobody has heard of:
The op-ed was written by some rando deputy whom no one would care about
— Allahpundit (@allahpundit) September 5, 2018
With agreement on that from team Hillary’s Jennifer Palmieri and Ari Fleischer:
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Fwiw, based on my experience with NYT sourcing rules for Administration officials, this person could easily be someone most of us have never heard of & more junior than you’d expect. Like a deputy at legislative affairs or NEC.
— Jennifer Palmieri (@jmpalmieri) September 6, 2018
From Hillary Clinton’s campaign communications director – and this is why it’s impossible to evaluate how important the anonymous NYT op-ed is. Without knowing how high up the author truly is, the op-ed leads me to no conclusions. https://t.co/IvRVLueU4L
— Ari Fleischer (@AriFleischer) September 6, 2018
As we told you last night, there are literally hundreds of people this could be:
Most DC journalists, incl. me, have quoted a "senior administration official" in stories. But I feel as though an op-ed like this should have an editor's note explaining what an SAO is. There are 1,212 Senate-confirmed positions, incl. 640 'key' jobs https://t.co/9WNva10ZOr https://t.co/CySe7znom1
— David Nakamura (@DavidNakamura) September 5, 2018
So maybe cut the meaningless speculation clickbait, ‘eh?
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Related:
Glenn Greenwald points out the "glaring and massive" irony from that anonymous White House "coward" https://t.co/taszcy2a1r
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 6, 2018
"GREAT WORK"! Did the NYT serve Donald Trump "his 'Deep State' talking point" on a silver platter? https://t.co/HTvEtXsqrS
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 6, 2018
After NYT op-ed, David Nakamura reminds us how many "senior administration officials" there are https://t.co/crTomBwbR8
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 6, 2018
Who's up for Alyssa Milano's hysterical response to that New York Times op-ed? https://t.co/HzzR3hnPqc
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) September 5, 2018
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