Kellyanne Conway, senior counselor to President Donald Trump, said Sunday that the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed lambasting Trump wrote the piece to make trouble, not for patriotic reasons.
“I think the motivation was to sow discord and create chaos,” Conway said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The Times’ opinion section published an op-ed last week by an anonymous writer who identified as both a member of the Trump administration and the “resistance” to some of his policies and behavior. A wave of top administration officials condemned the piece and denied authoring it, and Trump called for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate who authored the piece, although it offers no indication of a crime.
Conway said Sunday that she did not know if the person who wrote the op-ed broke the law, but she posited that any writer who would do such a thing might also have divulged classified information.
“We also don’t know what this person has said to try to get that op-ed in The New York Times or what he or she has said to other people,” Conway said.