Miles Taylor — who on Wednesday revealed himself to be the author of the infamous “anonymous” New York Times op-ed slamming the president — is a former Department of Homeland Security staffer campaigning against Trump’s re-election.
Between 2017 and his resignation in April 2019, Taylor, 33, worked in DHS, including as chief of staff for Kirstjen Nielsen, the former secretary of homeland security.
A lifelong Republican, Taylor went public with his criticism of Trump this summer, and in August released a video endorsing Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden in the 2020 election.
That month, he also penned a Washington Post op-ed, under his own name, claiming the US is less safe under Trump, who governs “based on “whim, political calculation and self-interest.”
In response, Trump called Taylor a “disgruntled employee” in a tweet.
“Many thousands of people work for our government. With that said, a former DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE named Miles Taylor, who I do not know (never heard of him), said he left & is on the open arms Fake News circuit. Said to be a real “stiff”. They will take anyone against us!,” Trump wrote.
Taylor had repeatedly denied being “anonymous” until Wednesday — when he came forward in a post on Medium and a statement to CNN, where he’s been a contributor since September.
“More than two years ago, I published an anonymous opinion piece in The New York Times about Donald Trump’s perilous presidency, while I was serving under him. He responded with a short but telling tweet: ‘TREASON?’” Taylor wrote in his statement.
The 2018 op-ed, titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” caused a stir in Washington, with many Trump officials denying they were the author, including Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley.
In addition to coming forward as the author of the op-ed vowing resistance to Trump, Taylor also revealed he was the anonymous author of “A Warning,” a 2019 book that bashed the president as as an “undisciplined” and “amoral” leader.
“When I left the administration, I wrote ‘A Warning,’ a character study of the current commander in chief and a caution to voters that it wasn’t as bad as it looked inside the Trump administration — it was worse,” Taylor wrote on Wednesday.
Taylor previously worked in the President George W. Bush’s administration, as a staffer for the House Appropriations Committee and then the Committee on Homeland Security.
Following his resignation from DHS, Taylor became the head of national security relations for Google.
But he’s been on leave from the tech giant since endorsing Biden and working for the anti-Trump GOP group Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform.