Anonymous Anti-Trump Author Says He Will Reveal Identity

After much speculation about his identity, the anonymous author of A Warning had an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit and promised not to stay anonymous forever. "I am not afraid to use my own name to express concern about the current occupant of the Oval Office," wrote the author, who says he is a disillusioned Trump administration official. "Donald Trump has not heard the last of me. There is more to come. Other people who are currently serving, and who have left, are also considering adding their voices before votes are cast in 2020." The author defended his decision to remain anonymous for now, noting that the Founding Fathers published essays under pseudonyms "because they wanted the public to focus on the message and not the messenger," CBS reports.

The author promised to reveal his identity before next year's election, Business Insider reports. Reddit said it couldn't verify his identity by its usual standards, but the "publishers of his book assure us it's the same guy and we have no reason not to believe them." Asked what America should watch out for if Trump is re-elected, the author warned that the president might follow his "dangerous impulses to unknowable and alarming ends." In a New York Times op-ed last year, "I suggested that the 'Steady State' of top officials in the Administration could ameliorate Donald Trump's lapses in judgment," he wrote. "I was dead wrong. No one can thwart his attraction to wrongdoing." In another reply, he again used the word "lodestar." Last year, the word led to speculation that the author is Mike Pence. (A former James Mattis speechwriter says he isn't Anonymous.)