Trump has reportedly narrowed his list of New York Times op-ed suspects down to 12

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

President Trump and White House aides have come up with a list of roughly 12 people suspected of being behind the anonymous op-ed published Wednesday by The New York Times, an outside adviser told the Times on Thursday.

The op-ed, written by a senior administration official, called Trump's leadership style "impetuous, adversarial, petty, and ineffective," and the author said there is a "quiet resistance" underway by staffers trying to protect the country from Trump's "half-baked, ill-informed, and occasionally reckless decisions." White House officials spent Thursday calling different departments to ask Cabinet secretaries if they were responsible for the op-ed, the Times reports, and they all said no.

Several West Wing officials are especially suspicious of Vice President Mike Pence and his staff, and they were not persuaded by his denial, White House officials told the Times. There's also been talk of having senior officials sign affidavits swearing they did not write the op-ed. Read more about the panicked response at The New York Times.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.