Very interesting,but should have eliminated most of the secretaries. They oversee departments of usgov,even though they are wh appointees,they don't have a lot of oval office exposure.
They may have accounted for writing style analysis before posting the article. NYT has a superb team of security experts.
Anyways,I agree with OP,it's likely the VP.
What does it tell us that the Python op-ed hunting hack got the least amount of HN votes compared to the two R submissions?