Miles Taylor, the former chief of staff to Homeland Security Secretary Kristjen Nielsen, revealed on Wednesday that he was the anonymous author of a 2018 New York Times op-ed and subsequent book alleging a “resistance” within the Trump administration, The Times reports.
Taylor, who publicly spoke out against the president earlier this year and endorsed Joe Biden, penned an anonymous op-ed in 2018 claiming he and “like-minded colleagues” had “vowed to thwart parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations.”
Taylor later wrote a book describing Trump as “undisciplined” and “amoral.”
He resigned in June 2019 after helping Nielsen oversee the administration’s immigration crackdown and family separation policy. He served as Nielsen’s top aide for two years and left when she was fired to become the head of national security relations for Google.
“When I left the administration, I wrote ‘A Warning,’ a character study of the current commander in chief and a caution to voters that it wasn’t as bad as it looked inside the Trump administration — it was worse,” Taylor wrote.
Trump calls for mass firings, prosecution:
Trump claimed not to know who Taylor was on Twitter.
“Who is Miles Taylor? Said he was ‘anonymous’, but I don’t know him — never even heard of him,” he wrote. “Just another @nytimes SCAM — he worked in conjunction with them. Also worked for Big Tech’s @Google. Now works for Fake News @CNN. They should fire, shame, and punish everybody associated with this FRAUD on the American people!”
At a rally in Arizona on Wednesday, Trump called for Taylor to be prosecuted.
“The whole thing was just one more giant hoax from the Washington swamp and a corrupt special interest group,” he said. “I’ll tell you what – this guy, in my opinion, should be prosecuted. He should be prosecuted. The left wing media and the swamp are doing everything in their power to try to stop us.”
Taylor blasted as “liar”:
Tayor, who also works as a CNN contributor, was called out by host Chris Cuomo for denying that he was the anonymous author during an August appearance.
"You lied to use, Miles. You were asked in August here on CNN if you were Anonymous and you said no," Cuomo said. "Now, why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that?"
"When I published [the book] I said I would strenuously deny that I was the author," Taylor replied. "The things that I said in that book were ideas that I wanted Donald Trump to challenge on their merits."
"So, when asked by Anderson I temporarily denied it," he added. "But I've always said I was going to come out under my own name. That being said, I owe Anderson a beer and I owe him a mea culpa."
