The author of an anonymously authored 2018 op-ed in The New York Times, that claimed there was a group of officials in the Trump administration who thwarted the president’s worst instincts, is revealing his identity.
In a blog post titled “Why I’m no longer ‘Anonymous‘” on Wednesday afternoon, Miles Taylor, who served as the chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security until 2019, revealed that he is the author of the op-ed — dubbed “Anonymous.”
“More than two years ago, I published an anonymous opinion piece in The New York Times about Donald Trump’s perilous presidency, while I was serving under him. He responded with a short but telling tweet: ‘TREASON?'” Taylor wrote. “Trump sees personal criticism as subversive.”
He continued, “We do not owe the President our silence. We owe him and the American people the truth.”
Taylor asserted that he is a Republican and that he joined the Trump administration in the beginning because he hoped Trump would succeed.
However, he said, “I saw Donald Trump prove he is a man without character, and his personal defects have resulted in leadership failures so significant that they can be measured in lost American lives.”
He noted that he anonymously wrote a book, “A Warning,” in 2019 to warn voters that “it wasn’t as bad as it looked inside the Trump Administration — it was worse.”
He added that while he wrote the book, he was not the only administration official who shared his views.
Taylor also explained why he penned the op-ed and published the book anonymously, “Issuing my critiques without attribution forced the President to answer them directly on their merits or not at all, rather than creating distractions through petty insults and name-calling.”
And he noted that he previously vowed to speak out against the president under his name, “That is why I’ve already been vocal throughout the general election.”
In his post, Taylor praised numerous former administration officials who have spoken out about the president either in their official capacity or after leaving their posts.
“History will also record the names of those souls who had everything to lose but stood up anyway,” he said as he described them not as “Deep-Staters” out to thwart the president but as “patriots.”
He encouraged Republicans to vote for Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden even though he will likely push for “progressive reforms that conservatives oppose.”
“I believe Joe Biden’s decency will bring us back together where Donald Trump’s dishonesty has torn us apart,” he said.
Meanwhile, he said Trump has been “exactly what we conservatives always said government should not be.”
And he claimed that if Trump wins re-election, “he will push the limits of his power further than the ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ for which he was already impeached.”
Finally, he said, “Removing Trump will not be the end of our woes … If we really want to restore vibrance to our civic life, the change must begin with each of us, not just with the occupant of the Oval Office.”
Taylor published an op-ed in The Washington Post in August urging Americans to vote against Trump, as IJR reported. He also endorsed Biden for president.