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Anonymous Trump official who wrote New York Times op-ed to release book

<span>Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock</span>
Photograph: Rex/Shutterstock

An anonymous senior government official who wrote an excoriating op-ed column describing Donald Trump’s time in office, and detailing an internal “resistance” movement to thwart the president, has written a book that will be released in November.

The book, titled A Warning, will expand on the anonymous article which was published by the New York Times in September 2018, it emerged on Tuesday.

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That article, which the Times said was written by a current Trump administration official, presented a shocking description of Trump’s presidency.

The official described Trump as making “half-baked, ill-informed and occasionally reckless decisions” and said a group of Trump appointees were working on “thwarting Mr Trump’s more misguided impulses until he is out of office”.

The Washington Post and CNN reported that the book will be published on 19 November. A draft press release to accompany the launch, obtained by CNN, described the book as: “Picking up from where those first words of warning left off, this explosive book offers a shocking, first-hand account of President Trump and his record.”

The release of A Warning is unlikely to please Trump, who remains embroiled in the Ukraine scandal and is facing growing public appetite for his impeachment and removal from office.

After the New York Times published the anonymous article last year Trump suggested the writer had committed “treason” in filing the piece, and called for the New York Times to reveal the official’s identity. (The Times did not.)

The Times opinion article, which ran under the headline: I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration, described a chaotic White House led by a president whose leadership style is “impetuous, adversarial, petty and ineffective”.

The official wrote that “many of the senior officials in his own administration are working diligently from within to frustrate parts of his agenda and his worst inclinations”.

“Given the instability many witnessed, there were early whispers within the cabinet of invoking the 25th amendment, which would start a complex process for removing the president,” the official wrote.

The Times described the writer as “a senior official in the Trump administration whose identity is known to us and whose job would be jeopardized by its disclosure”.