Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday that President Trump should use lie-detector tests to find out which senior administration official authored an anonymous op-ed in The New York Times this week blasting the president.
The author, who is only identified as “a senior official” in the Trump administration, claimed there is resistance within the White House by otherwise loyal Republicans to what they see as Trump’s “amorality” and “anti-trade and anti-democratic” impulses.
{mosads}Paul said Trump should investigate and use lie detector tests to identify the person, who also claimed in the op-ed that Cabinet officials have quietly discussed using the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office.
“It’s not unprecedented for people with security clearances to be asked whether or not they’re revealing things against the law under oath and also by lie detector,” Paul said.
“We use the lie-detector test routinely for CIA agents and FBI agents,” he argued. “If you have a security clearance in the White House, I think it would be acceptable to use a lie detector test and ask people whether or not they’re taking to the media against the policy of the White House.”
Paul warned that if the op-ed’s author has a security clearance, he or she could also divulge national security secrets to the media.
“We need to get to the bottom of it,” he said.
But when asked whether Congress should also investigate, Paul shook his head no.
A number of Trump Cabinet members on Thursday rushed to distance themselves from the op-ed, which Trump has blasted, accusing the author of “treason.”
The White House has called for the “coward” who wrote the column to resign.