Comparing the NYT op-ed to tweets from cabinet members

If a person doesn't like the president, the proper recourse is public criticism working to ensure he doesn't get re-elected and if possible impeachment . . . the proper recourse is never actively sabotaging the president of the United States. There may be exceptional circumstances where the president is violating the constitution, however, we still have a functional supreme court so that exception isn't raised in this circumstance.

That requires to place 100% trust in NYT, which you may be willing to do, but it's not a law of nature. Journalists in search of a scoop have been known to confuse what they want with what really is (remember the sordid Bush memo affair that ruined Dan Rather's career?) and even if not intentionally deceitful, being easier to deceive if the information confirms their biases.

> For the sake of discussion, what ethical arguments do you think there are for finding out who wrote this?

Knowing who wrote this allows to adequately evaluate whether what is said there is true, what vested interests or grudges may the author have and what information may they have from the first hand, second hand and what information they couldn't have and if they claim they have it they must be lying. E.g. if somebody who doesn't have clearance says they have been on classified briefing and heard Trump say so and so, it would be clear they are either lying or relaying third-party information as first party.

While for the author of the article discovery would be a negative, for a voter that wants to be informed, and wants to independently evaluate the worth of the information knowing the source may be very useful.

Also, since this article does not seem to be disclosing any classified information, the worst thing that could happen is that person would be fired. People got fired from Trump administration many times, some after a very short time, and none of them suffered any heavy consequences that would make any act leading to such outcome unethical, such as death, heavy bodily or mental harm, full financial ruin, etc.

So it appears to be clearly within ethical bounds to research this question, no less than any question that any politician would like to hide to promote their goals. While each such revelation inevitably would hurt somebody's interests (otherwise nobody would try to hide it!), there's nothing unethical in still trying to reveal it.

For instance imagine this individual's cabal has an opportunity to engage in an awful act, but due to their position they believe this act will be blamed on the administration or even the president himself. Do you think they would hesitate to do so? This is one of the many reasons that, for instance, in war traitors tend to be treated much more harshly than even the enemy. There's a difference between open disagreement, even when that disagreement escalates into something beyond just words, and an individual that pretends to be an ally and instead is attempting to destroy somebody from within. The latter is already shown to have placed no value on anything except their own world view.

And the purpose of publishing this letter is not to "reassure the public." You should not trust a liar just because he's saying something you want to believe. Occam's razor is highly effective in getting at the truth and in this case it's almost certain that the purpose of publishing this letter is to try to increase the paranoia of the president, and to increase the probability of his engaging in ostensibly irrational behavior. That's just a great idea, right?

I don't like Trump but this is even worse.

Although I personally voted against him, I believe Donald Trump was elected by the American voters and those American voters have a right to have their policy preferences implemented by the person they’ve elected to do so. If any person with integrity can not carry out their democratically elected leaders orders to the best of their ability, the only recourse they have is to resign and give a full accounting of why they can’t to the American people, if they feel so strongly about it.

What I’ll NEVER support is a secret, unaccountable cabal of plotters who have decided their opinions are more important than American democracy and rule the country according to their personal whims.

To be perfectly blunt, I don’t see what the difference is between that op-ed writers actions and a coup.

They are enabling a dangerous man to continue in one of the most powerful offices on the planet, because they refuse to stand up and tell the truth about the matter.