In September 2018, the New York Times published an op-ed by an anonymous “senior administration official” who said that he and others were secretly working to sabotage the Trump administration from within.
Now, Miles Taylor has come out as “anonymous” and the NYT confirms that he is the author. At the time the op-ed was written, Taylor was the deputy chief of staff (i.e., an advisor) to the secretary of Homeland Security, which is not what most people would consider to be a senior administration official. Eyebrows are being raised, to say the least.
In a piece that accompanied the original op-ed, the NYT explained (sort of) what they mean by “senior administration official”:
I understand readers’ frustration that we didn’t provide a more precise description of the official. . . The term we chose, senior administration official, is used in Washington by both journalists and government officials to describe positions in the upper echelon of an administration, such as the one held by this writer.
(Emphasis mine.) This doesn’t say much, but the part in bold does confirm that they are using the term according to its conventional meaning.
The New York Times is trying to obfuscate this now. The profile of Miles Taylor they published today says:
On Wednesday, he disclosed his identity and his role in the administration as a top official in the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Taylor ultimately became chief of staff to Kirstjen Nielsen, Mr. Trump’s former homeland security secretary. In that position, Mr. Taylor was one of the most senior political officials in the sprawling department, which employs more than 240,000 people.
The chief of staff to a cabinet secretary might be considered a senior official, but he was not in that role at the time. In their profile, they do not mention anywhere what role Taylor was in at the time, which is weird since there’s no other reason why anyone would be interested in a profile of Taylor today.
The New York Times has published reams upon reams of attack pieces against President Trump using anonymous sources. Now that we know, for certain, that they are willing to lie about their anonymous sources, why should we believe any of their other reporting?
Internet Scofflaw 