Trump official who wrote damning anonymous article to release book titled 'A Warning'

Author who spoke of 'resistance' within the Trump administration will publish book next month

The author has remained anonymous since publication of NYT op-ed in September 2018 (AFP/Getty)

An anonymous Trump administration official who published a September 2018 essay in The New York Times, about the active resistance to the president’s agenda and behaviour from within his own administration, will publish a book next month.

The author, who has not been publicly identified, created an uproar when he or she wrote in an op-ed last year that many of President Donald Trump’s senior officials “are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations,” adding, “I would know. I am one of them.”

The book, titled, A Warning, will be published on 19 November by Twelve, a division of the Hachette Book Group. The author, who will remain unnamed in the book, is represented by Matt Latimer and Keith Urbahn of Javelin, the literary agency that represents former FBI Director James Comey, Senator Martha McSally and retired US Navy Commander Guy Snodgrass.

In a news release announcing the book, the publisher said that the author did not receive an advance, and would be donating any royalties to non-profit organisations that focus on government accountability and press freedom.

“The author could have easily gotten a seven-figure advance and the author refused it,” Mr Latimer said in an interview with The Times. “The book is a public service, in the author’s view.”

In a withering statement, Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary, said: “It takes a lot of conviction and bravery to write a whole book anonymously.”

News of the deal was reported earlier by The Washington Post.

The announcement comes at a precarious time for Mr Trump, who faces an impeachment inquiry, scrutiny of his foreign policy decisions regarding Syria and Ukraine, and criticism of his now-abandoned decision to host next year’s G7 meeting at the Trump National Doral resort near Miami.

A Warning is also likely to become the latest explosive tell-all about the Trump administration, following headline-grabbing books by former government officials such as Mr Comey; Andrew McCabe, a former deputy FBI director; Cliff Sims, a former Trump aide; and Omarosa Manigault Newman, a former reality TV star and White House official.

In the 2018 op-ed, the author described a systematic effort within the administration to “preserve our democratic institutions” by defying some of Mr Trump’s directives. “There is a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first,” the author wrote.

The essay sparked criticism from both liberals and Democrats who felt the administration official should resign and come forward publicly, and from Trump supporters who denounced the official as a “deep state” operative undermining the president’s agenda. Mr Trump himself argued that the official was guilty of “treason” and posed a national security risk, and he suggested that his then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions should use law enforcement to investigate the official.

The unnamed official, whose identity is known to The Times editorial page department but not to the news department or the reporters who cover the White House, has managed to remain anonymous for more than a year despite frenzied efforts to uncover the person’s identity.

On Twitter, much of the discussion after the news was published Tuesday revolved around guesses about the author’s identity and decision to remain anonymous. “At a time when State Department employees are risking their careers to testify about wrongdoing in this administration, I can’t think of anyone I want to hear from less than this person,” tweeted Matthew Miller, a former director of the Justice Department’s Office of Public Affairs in the Obama administration.

It’s unclear whether the official remains in the administration, given the high turnover in Trump’s Cabinet, and how much additional and specific detail the book will offer regarding the president’s behaviour and misgivings that members of his own administration might have.

Keeping the author’s identity under wraps may prove tricky with the release of a book-length work — Amazon lists A Warning as a 272-page book — which offers a greater opportunity for clues to his or her identity as well as increasingly sophisticated forensic author identification software, which matches prose style to other published works. Such software has been used to solve literary mysteries and unmask authors writing under pseudonyms, including JK Rowling, who published mystery novels as Robert Galbraith.

There’s a long American tradition of anonymously published political writing, including “Common Sense,” which Thomas Paine originally released anonymously in the 1770s at the beginning of the American Revolution, and the Federalist Papers, which were published under a collective pen name. But previous attempts at writing anonymous political books have fallen apart quickly: Just a few months after the publication of “Primary Colours,” a thinly veiled 1996 novel about Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign, journalist Joe Klein was outed as its author.

Sean Desmond, the publisher of Twelve, said that there were good reasons for the author to remain unnamed.

“Anonymous explains in the book why they won’t reveal themselves as the author — and I found those arguments persuasive,” Mr Desmond said. “And part of the reason for the anonymity, I think, is to present the story of this administration without filter, without fear of reprisal from the president, and to tell the truth about what’s going on in this White House.”

The New York Times