WASHINGTON | A former chief of staff to a Donald Trump minister revealed on Wednesday that he was the author in 2018 of an explosive anonymous forum denouncing the president’s erratic behavior.
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“We do not owe the president silence. We owe him, and the American people, the truth, ”writes Miles Taylor, former chief of staff to Homeland Security Minister (DHS) John Kelly, in a column published on the Medium website titled Why am I no longer anonymous.
The revelation of his identity has drawn strong criticism from the New York Times, who published this text claiming that its author was a “senior official” in the government.
In his text published on Medium, Miles Taylor claims to be “a Republican” and to have “wanted this president to be successful”.
“But too often in times of crisis, I have seen Donald Trump prove that he has no character and that his personal weaknesses have caused leadership failures which can be measured in loss of American life,” explains the former official, who worked at the Ministry of Homeland Security between January 2017 and summer 2019.
He assures that many members of the government were of the same opinion, but that “the majority hesitated to speak for fear of reprisals”.
At a campaign rally in Arizona, Donald Trump quipped “a guy who never worked in the White House” and wrote “a bogus book” saying he should be prosecuted.
Sarah Matthews, spokesperson for the White House, denounced a “finished loser” and criticized the New York Times for having guaranteed anonymity to “a lower ranking official”.
In his text, “Anonymous” recounted how he and others struggled from within against the “worst inclinations” of a president with “mean”, “brash” and “ineffective” leadership. He affirmed in particular that the president was harming “the good health” of the republic.
The dissemination of this anonymous forum had sparked controversy. Donald Trump had cried out “betrayal” and called the anonymous author a “coward”.
A year later, “Anonymous” had published the book A Warning (“A Warning”), a “shocking, first-hand testimony to President Trump and his work,” according to its editor.
Miles Taylor defended his choice of anonymity on Wednesday. “I wanted the attention to be on the arguments themselves,” rather than offering Donald Trump an opportunity to “distract attention with petty slurs and bird names.”
With less than a week to go before the presidential election, he also called on Republican voters to “put the country above the party” and vote for Democrat Joe Biden.
“I think Joe Biden’s decency will bring us together where Donald Trump’s dishonesty has torn us apart,” he assures us.