A senior administration official is sounding an alarm about U.S. President Donald Trump’s “amorality” and “impetuous” leadership style in an unsigned opinion piece published in the New York Times.
The newspaper describes the author of the unsigned column only as “a senior official in the Trump administration.” The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The writer says Trump aides are aware of the president’s faults and “we are trying to do what’s right even when Donald Trump won’t.”
The op-ed runs under the headline “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.”
The writer alleges “there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th Amendment” because of the “instability” witnessed in the president. That amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows for the transfer of power to the vice-president if the president is deemed “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
The author writes that Trump is facing a challenge to his presidency far greater than special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe or the bitter divide among American about his leadership.
“Many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations. I would know. I am one of them.
“To be clear, ours is not the popular ‘resistance’ of the left. We want the administration to succeed and think that many of its policies have already made America safer and more prosperous. But we believe our first duty is to this country, and the president continues to act in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic.
The author goes on to say that many Trump appointees have “vowed to do what we can to preserve our democratic institutions while thwarting Mr. Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”
“This isn’t the work of the so-called deep state. It’s the work of the steady state,” the writer adds.
With files from CBC News