Here's 'Anonymous,' Trump Aides Say.
And Here's How They Outed Her.
Ever since a “senior official in the Trump administration” penned an anonymous 2018 New York Times column attacking President Trump as unfit for office, Washington has been engrossed in a high-stakes whodunit. After an exhaustive investigation, the White House believes it’s cracked the case, identifying Trump's turncoat as his former deputy national security adviser, Victoria Coates, according to people familiar with the internal probe.
Rather than fire Coates, the White House has quietly transferred her to the Department of Energy, where she awaits special assignment in Saudi Arabia -- far from the president.
Trump effectively demoted Coates just four months after promoting her last fall to the No. 2 spot on his National Security Council. The move was made amid a whisper campaign, started in January, that identified Coates as “Anonymous,” the person who wrote the Times Op-Ed and a subsequent book, “A Warning,” claiming to be part of a cabal of “fellow Republicans" resisting Trump and his policies from inside the administration.
The Washington press corps has for the most part dismissed the whispers as “unsubstantiated rumors” circulated on the Internet.
But the sources said the identification of Coates was based on circumstantial evidence generated from a months-long White House investigation led by sleuths within the NSC. Top White House adviser Peter Navarro, who works with the NSC on trade and other issues, also was heavily involved in the probe of Coates.
But the sources said the identification of Coates was based on circumstantial evidence generated from a months-long White House investigation led by sleuths within the NSC. Top White House adviser Peter Navarro, who works with the NSC on trade and other issues, also was heavily involved in the probe of Coates.
She declined to discuss the matter on the record with RealClearInvestigations and has retained an attorney, friends say, although several colleagues have rushed to her defense, insisting the White House has the wrong person. But a source involved in the NSC probe who asked not to be identified said there was little doubt. “It’s her,” the source said of Coates. “That’s why she was shown the door.”
Published last year, "A Warning" dared the president to try to unmask the author. White House sleuths took up the dare, and found the 260-page book offered a wealth of clues.
The multiple sources interviewed by RealClearInvestigations either participated in the investigation of Coates or have direct knowledge of it. They spoke only on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter. They say their evidence exposing Coates includes the following:
- Computer textual analyses revealing strikingly similar language, turns of phrase and historical references by both Coates and Anonymous.
- Firsthand accounts by Anonymous of events witnessed only by Coates and a small number of others, the latter of whom were ruled out as suspects.
- Hawkish foreign policy views held by Anonymous, many of which have been rejected by Trump.
- The fact that Coates and Anonymous share a high-profile Washington literary agent with an author roster of disaffected ex-Trump officials.
- Coates' long history of writing anonymously, and
- Personal details revealed by Anonymous that are consistent with Coates’ biography.
For political reasons, the White House decided against officially unmasking Coates and firing her, at least not before the Nov. 3 election, the sources said. Publicly outing her would merely create an unwelcome distraction ahead of the election. Coates is a well-connected conservative, who has a staunch ally in Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. White House political operatives want to avoid the divisions that marked the 2016 race, and are focused on unifying the party ahead of this summer's GOP presidential convention.
Former Deputy National Security Adviser K.T. McFarland: “The suggestion that Victoria is ‘Anonymous’ is preposterous.”
AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File
Illustrating the sensitivity of the internecine GOP affair is the insistence of some ex-Trump White House officials that Coates is wrongly accused. “The suggestion that Victoria is ‘Anonymous’ is preposterous,” said K.T. McFarland, Trump’s first deputy national security adviser, who helped recruit Coates to the NSC and then supervised her for much of 2017. She said Coates was a committed member of the Trump team.
McFarland added that Coates denied being the author not only to her, but also to White House security officials, who include FBI agents.
“Victoria herself has denied being ‘Anonymous' during her routine security clearance review,” she told RCI. “Anyone familiar with the security clearance process knows that it would have been a criminal offense, punishable by jail time, for her to lie about this.”
Although “A Warning” opens with a preemptive denial that it discloses any classified information, the Justice Department has been looking into a potential violation of a federal regulation requiring officials with access to classified information to get prior approval before publishing books about their roles in the government. Coates signed a federal non-disclosure agreement, or NDA, when she joined the White House in 2017.
The probe has exposed a less prominent faction secretly undermining Trump inside the White House, sources say: not just Democratic holdovers from the Obama White House, but disloyal “Never-Trump” Republicans, who, as Anonymous complained in the book, don’t believe the president can be trusted to uphold "conservative principles.” The author admitted conspiring with several other “like-minded” officials to obstruct Trump and his policies and directives from the inside.
White House investigators say they are looking into at least four other White House staffers whom they suspect were part of the “resistance" with Coates. The behind-the-scenes story of how the White House fixed on Coates as the anti-Trump mole is told here for the first time.
The Hunt for ‘Anonymous’
In September 2018, the New York Times agreed to hide the identity of a senior administration official bashing Trump in an opinion piece headlined “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” The author claimed to be one of several “like-minded” officials “thwarting" the president’s agenda and even plotting to try to remove him from office.
Incensed, Trump declared the screed an act of “treason” and ordered an investigation to unmask the “gutless” official. The White House drew up a short list of suspects... (continued)
