Friday 07 September 2018 8:52 am

The anonymous Trump letter isn’t treason, but such public provocation is unproductive

Treason? Question mark or not, the US President’s response to the anonymous opinion article in the New York Times, supposedly from someone working in his administration, has dramatically overstepped the mark.

Any reasonable person recognises that the accusations against Donald Trump in the piece do not amount to “the crime of betraying one’s country” – and there is currently no evidence that any confidential information was leaked.

But aside from that, what should we make of the open letter, which reveals that senior officials in the White House are working to curb what the author describes as the President’s “worst inclinations”?

On the content of the article itself, I find myself extremely sympathetic. It is clearly written by someone with classically liberal leanings, as they rightly target the Republican party’s drift away from “free minds, free markets, and free people” under the current leadership.

The author also notes the under-coverage of many of Trump’s policy wins – namely the Republican tax cuts in December 2017 and the extent to which industry has been deregulated under his presidency so far, which have both contributed to a booming economy across the US.

It is not unpatriotic, or even disloyal, for a senior official in the Trump administration to disagree with the President on certain policy areas. In fact, working to educate and influence the President towards the right policy path is exactly what officials are appointed and paid to do.

I would much prefer decent, bright, and independent thinking people to populate the White House – who might advise Trump away from extreme policies along the US and Mexican border, for example – than I would for it to be filled with staffers who all wholeheartedly and unquestioningly agree with the President’s every word.

This should not be unique to Trump. Whether with President Obama or Trump’s successor, a diversity of perspectives and opinions in all circumstances makes the Oval Office stronger – as long as it is accepted that the final decision falls to the democratically elected leader.

In short, the buck stops with the President.

It’s this issue of legacy and common practice where my sympathies for the anonymous author fall away.

The job of an aide is to influence the policy from the inside, not the outside. The result of this article will undoubtedly be that Trump grows yet more sceptical of his aides and is less likely to take their advice, on the suspicion that at least a handful are working against his agenda.

If this becomes a pattern, it will turn all of Washington into even more of a political game. Officials and departments that should be focused on creating the best policies to benefit American citizens cannot be in the business of petty political point-scoring.

If this tactic is embraced by Trump’s opponents now, be assured that it will used against them when their man or woman comes to power.

Trump has the terrible habit of escalating situations and destroying atmospheres of civil discourse. But as the author themselves notes, “the bigger concern is not what Mr Trump has done to the presidency but rather what we as a nation have allowed him to do to us”.

I fear that their letter may be more out of the Trump playbook than they would care to admit.