Melania Trump attacks 'cowardly' anonymous author of New York Times article
'You are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it', first lady says
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Your support makes all the difference."People with no names are writing our nation's history," Melania Trump has said in an attack on a New York Times article written by an anonymous “senior official in the Trump administration”.
The US first lady branded the opinion piece “cowardly” and accused the author of “sabotaging” the country.
The article, titled I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration, sensationally claims White House insiders are actively working to thwart many of the president’s political ambitions.
Following its publication, Donald Trump described the author as “gutless”, renewed his attack on the “phony media outlets”, and tweeted “TREASON?”, before calling on the paper’s investigative reporters to investigate who the author of the piece was.
His wife also condemned the article, telling CNN - another of the outlets derided by Mr Trump - in a statement: “To the writer of the op-ed - you are not protecting this country, you are sabotaging it with your cowardly actions.
"Unidentified sources have become the majority of the voices people hear about in today's news. People with no names are writing our nation's history. Words are important, and accusations can lead to severe consequences.
"If a person is bold enough to accuse people of negative actions, they have a responsibility to publicly stand by their words and people have the right to be able to defend themselves."
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders also described the article as being written by a “anonymous coward” and writing on Twitter advised those seeking the identity of the author to contact the New York Times.
She said: “If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT.
"They are the only ones complicit in this deceitful act. We stand united together and fully support our President Donald J Trump."
Despite the Trump administration’s repeated assertion the New York Times is “failing”, since election day in 2016, stockholders have seen their shares outperform those in companies including Apple, Amazon and Facebook, with analysts describing the paper’s rise in market value as “the Trump bump”.
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