Miles Taylor called ‘a liar’ on CNN for previous ‘Anonymous’ author denial

Trump administration turncoat Miles Taylor got called out for being “a liar” on CNN for previously denying he was the anonymous insider who wrote an op-ed and a book slamming President Trump.

The dressing down from CNN host Chris Cuomo had the added sting of occurring on the network where he’s now a paid contributor.

“You lied to us, Miles. You were asked in August if you were anonymous here on CNN with Anderson Cooper, and you said ’no,’” Mr. Cuomo said on his show Wednesday night. “Why should CNN keep you on the payroll after lying like that?”

Mr. Taylor, who presented himself as a senior official at the time of the 2018 op-ed in the New York Times that described a high-ranking “resistance” to Mr. Trump within the administration, also was something less than a senior official. He was an adviser in the Department of Homeland Security and later promoted to chief of staff for then-Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

He followed up the op-ed with an anonymous 2019 book “Warning” that claimed, among other things, Cabinet officials had discussed invoking the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office.

Mr. Taylor, 33, resigned from DHS last year after Ms. Nielsen was fired. He later became head of national security relations for Google and took the contributor job at CNN.

He has been on a leave of absence from Google after helping form the anti-Trump group Republican Political Alliance for Integrity and Reform.

Just before the start of the Republican National Convention in August, Mr. Taylor released a video in which he endorsed the Democratic challenger, Joseph R. Biden.

Several mainstream news outlets, including The Washington Post, scolded The Times and his publisher, Twelve Books, for passing off Mr. Taylor as a “senior official.”

At the time, speculation ran rampant “anonymous” could be a Cabinet secretary or a well-known figure in the White House such as economic adviser Kevin Hassett or then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley.

In that company, Mr. Taylor was a backbencher.

In revealing himself, Mr. Taylor also is getting pounded by fellow anti-Trump Republicans for going along with the president’s policies, including helping implement the travel ban and family separation at the border.

Political strategist Reed Galen, who co-founded the Republican anti-Trump activist group Lincoln Project, said Mr. Taylor “isn’t a hero.”

“He sat in those rooms, in those councils of power, and allowed the banality of evil to work its way through America. Heroism isn’t silence until it’s convenient and personally advantageous,” he tweeted.

In the CNN interview, Mr. Taylor warned that policies he once worked on are now the “’Nazi-like immigration policies” that Mr. Trump will pursue if re-elected.

“That’s really where they want to go is turn this country into fortress America rather than the shining city on a hill,” he said.

Still, Mr. Cuomo said that the lying about being “anonymous” called into question Mr. Taylor’s overall veracity.

“People will be slow to believe you when you lied about something as important as whether or not you wanted to own this,” he said.

Mr. Taylor admitted he was wrong and said he owed Mr. Cooper “a beer.”

“I owe him a mea culpa,” said Mr. Taylor. “And the same thing for other reporters who at that time asked me, ’Are you anonymous?’ and I said, ’no,’ because I wanted that work to stand on its own two legs and deprive the president of an opportunity to do one more personal attack to distract from his record.”

Since Mr. Taylor outed himself Wednesday, Mr. Trump has referred to to the former member of his administration several times during campaign rallies, calling for prosecution of the former DHS chief of staff while also dismissing him as a ” low-level staffer, a sleazebag.”