UPDATED Pence Office Pushes Back: 'The Vice President Puts His Name on His Op-Eds'

[DonViejo]

Last edited Thu Sep 6, 2018, 09:35 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Mediate


by Ken Meyer | Sep 6th, 2018, 8:12 am

The communications director for Mike Pence is making a point of denying that the vice president is behind the anonymous New York Times op-ed denouncing Donald Trump‘s chaotic tendencies.

As people continue to guess the identity of the unknown “Senior Trump Official,” some political observers have looked at the evidence and convinced themselves that it may very well be Pence. However, Pence senior staffer Jarrod Agen is saying that idea is completely preposterous.

Link to tweet

The anonymously-written op-ed caused a major firestorm because of what it describes about inner White House forces working to undermine and restrain the president before his “amorality” and conduct damages the country. This comes amid the intrigue over Bob Woodward‘s new bombshell-filled book, which suggested Trump’s team is frantically working to stop him from taking the country into a nosedive.

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Read more: https://www.mediaite.com/online/pence-office-pushes-back-the-vice-president-puts-his-name-on-his-op-eds/

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UPDATE:

Pence, Pompeo deny they wrote anonymous op-ed slamming Trump

By CAITLIN OPRYSKO 09/06/2018 08:43 AM EDT

Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo are publicly denying that they are the author of an anonymous New York Times op-ed detailing a "resistance" movement inside the Trump administration, in an extraordinary demonstration of how the editorial has rattled the highest levels of government.

The editorial — which was published on Wednesday from “a senior official in the Trump administration” and accuses the president of acting “in a manner that is detrimental to the health of our republic" — has kicked off a wild guessing game inside the White House and out about the author’s identity.

In the hours after the remarkable rebuke of the president by one of his own, parts of the internet, searching for any clues as to who could have written the piece, latched on to the use of one word in particular: lodestar.

Some pointed out that Pence had used the fairly uncommon word in at least two speeches he delivered in 2017. But in a tweet condemning the column as “gutless,” Pence’s office denied that he wrote it, charging that “The Vice President puts his name on his Op-Eds.”

more
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/09/06/nyt-op-ed-pence-pompeo-809125

[cstanleytech]

1. Ya but the VP cannot be fired by a petty vindictive little tyrant for voicing his opinion.

[central scrutinizer]

2. Great!

This is right out of the Rove playbook: “when they’re explaining, they’re losing.”

[Maxheader]

27. Thats a big 10 - 4 buddy...

The louder the denial....

Course the rightys don't pick up on that...

[LonePirate]

3. No one will admit to writing the op-ed while still working for the administration.

This denial rings hollow.

[Botany]

4. I.O.W.

It was Pence.

[emulatorloo]

5. Pence lacks the thoughtfulness and introspection of the Op-ed writer

JMHO of course.

[Botany]

6. But somebody on his staff could have written it for him or with his blessing

n/t

[Mosby]

12. yeah, like nick ayers

His chief of staff.

[Cosmocat]

15. No, it wasn't

He is too smart/conniving to do it.

Whoever wrote that letter will have no future as an elected republican, and that goes double for Pence as the VP, the person next in line, will be taken as doing it for his own personal motives, generally, and more specifically for the lunatics in his voting block, purported "evangelicals" who have more loyalty to Trump than any other politician in our history.

His best shot at the Oval Office is keeping his head down, and let nature take its course and slide in as the supposed "good guy" who stayed about the shit show.

[brooklynite]

7. Never understood why anyone would gravitate to Pence as the source...

If (when) the OP writer's name is revealed, his public persona in the WH will be evaluated. A suck-up like Pence secretly working to undermine the President would be seen as devious rather than patriotic.

[Liberalagogo]

13. Google "Lodestar"

n/t

[brooklynite]

14. ...and if I were a secret agent, I wouldn't give my identity away so obviously.

[Liberalagogo]

18. Newsflash

Pence is NO secret agent. He's a bit of a dumbass like everyone else in Shithole's admin.

[haele]

20. Personally, I think it was Miller just to shake things up.

He's the type of slime that knows everyone in the Administration uses phrasing from the same book the more successful televangelicals use, and could easily write up something to not only take the news cycle off Republican Senators looking piss-poor against the Democratic block, but can get rid of those few high level staff "roadblocks" that keep him and his fellow Nazis from just "doing it" and completely taking over the Administration using Trump as a populist battering ram while they still can.
Bannon could do it, too. He thrives on "disruptive innovation" - of burning the establishment down to rebuild something more to their liking.
Hannity - naah. That bastard is smarmy enough to have written it, but is too stupid to actually time it well enough it could give Kavanaugh some breathing room, take attention off a rare show of political aggression by the Democrats that actually might help them, and cause Trump to re-stack his staff with less "thoughtful" staff members who would be willing to just blow things up and damn the consequences.

Haele

[Cosmocat]

16. YEP

It does not even read like him, at all - he is disciplined right wing talking points machine.

People are latching on to Lodestar, but nothing else fits at all.

[Liberalagogo]

19. BS

Pence is no such thing. He's stupid enough to give himself away.

[Cosmocat]

23. OK

sure ...

It's him.

[Liberalagogo]

28. Ok Whatever

you're the smart ass around here.

[Cosmocat]

29. First off, I am right

but, I fail to see how not arguing with someone further is being a smart ass.

You want to believe what you want to believe, so be it.

[Liberalagogo]

30. Jusrt whaty a smart ass would say

Thanks for proving my point, and welcome to ignore.

[SWBTATTReg]

26. I agree w/ you...Pence is a suck up and unable to organize or write such a thing as the NYT's

article...we're giving Pence way too much intelligence...why do you think rump picked him? A toady, that's why and that is all Pence it, a toady.

[djacq]

8. Sure he puts his name on his op ed... wink wink

Agent Lodestar.

[machoneman]

9. Perhaps one person gave it to the NY Times but I think it had "many fathers"!

I'll venture that 2-3 staffers or even Cabinet members (or a mix) drafted the op-ed but had only one come forward to give it to the Times.

[PubliusEnigma]

10. So, LodeStar, now you see that evil will always triumph, because good is dumb.

[elmac]

11. the fascists invented "ratfucking", its a GOP tradition and used it against Nixons enemies

this seems like something they would come up with to stir things up. Nice to see what goes around comes around.

[AndJusticeForSome]

17. "The anonymously-written op-ed caused a major firestorm because of what it describes..."

...not because of *who* said it. (That part not in OP quote).

But thinking about it, there may have been good reason for it being anonymous, at least for a day or so, so that the "firestorm" is focused on the content rather than the author.

Although much of the focus was on the mystery of "who?", If the source had been identified, the focus may have really been off the content, and onto the author.

[truthisfreedom]

21. Project Lodestar

[Solly Mack]

22. But I bet he'll be extra obsequious over the next few weeks.

lolol

[King_Klonopin]

24. Pence is my first "person of interest" as the guilty party.

If you think in terms of organized crime (i.e. gangsters) he stands
to gain the most if Trump if removed from office. If he is trying to
overthrow the current Don of this cabal, he is setting it into motion.
He gets to be POTUS without being voted into office - nice deal.
Like any gangster, he sees his chance. Once in office, he has 2 years
to sway the Rep base that he is a hero.

Pence is a creepy weasel of a man. His fawning posturing around the Boss
is ingratiating. Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer.

Reason number 2: if anyone is capable of acting out fantasies that can
be described as "savior complex" or messianic self-image, this guy is the
one. He can claim that he and a few colleagues saved the nation from ruin
after the dust settles. There is obvious self-righteousness woven into that
op-ed letter. Every time I watch this story being covered on cable news,
the only person I see in my minds-eye is Pence, Pence, Pence.

This is what happens when your government is taken over by antisocial,
psychopathological miscreants.

Pence is my first guess. Mattis is my second choice. Whoever it is, this admin.
is beyond the point of dysfunctional and cowardly. Psychotic?

[DeminPennswoods]

25. Was watching for the first and most vociferous denials

as an indicator of who is likely the source(s). Pence and Pompeo were at the top of my suspect list, and, bingo, they are also the first and loudest to say "not me".