The title senior administration official is a term used by the
American press to indicate the identity of a source while
retaining his or her anonymity. As the title is subjective, the reporter writing the article is allowed to decide if a source should be called one. Most reporters require the source to have "commissioned status". These include any Assistant to the President, Deputy Assistant to the President, and Special Assistant to the President (all of these people are members of the
Executive Office of the President
The Executive Office of the President (EOP) comprises the offices and agencies that support the work of the president at the center of the executive branch of the United States federal government. The EOP consists of several offices and age ...
). However, senior administration officials almost always have the rank of Assistant. Other people that can be classified using this title include the
Vice President
A vice president, also director in British English, is an officer in government or business who is below the president (chief executive officer) in rank. It can also refer to executive vice presidents, signifying that the vice president is o ...
and Cabinet secretaries (occasionally deputies and undersecretaries as well). Sometimes officials request that they be identified using other titles to prevent anybody from determining their true identity.
Examples
*
Scooter Libby
Irve Lewis "Scooter" Libby (born August 22, 1950) is an American lawyer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney known for his high-profile indictment.
From 2001 to 2005, Libby held the offices of Assistant to the Vice Presiden ...
, former chief of staff to Vice President
Dick Cheney
Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...
, was referred to as a "former Hill staffer" by ''New York Times'' reporter
Judith Miller
Judith Miller (born January 2, 1948) is an American journalist and commentator known for her coverage of Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) program both before and after the 2003 invasion, which was later discovered to have been based on ...
. The use of high-ranking, anonymous sources caused numerous scandals for the George W. Bush administration, most notably the
Plame Affair
The Plame affair (also known as the CIA leak scandal and Plamegate) was a political scandal that revolved around journalist Robert Novak's public identification of Valerie Plame as a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer in 2003.
In 2002, ...
.
*On September 5, 2018, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' published an op-ed essay by an unnamed "senior official in the
Trump administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
," who claimed to be part of "a quiet resistance within the administration of people choosing to put country first." The author was revealed on October 28, 2020 to be
Miles Taylor, who had served as chief of staff for Department of Homeland Security Secretary
Kirstjen Nielsen
Kirstjen Michele Nielsen (; born May 14, 1972) is an American attorney who served as United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2017 to 2019. She is a former principal White House deputy chief of staff to President Donald Trump, and was ...
.
See also
*
Cabinet of the United States
The Cabinet of the United States is a body consisting of the vice president of the United States and the heads of the executive branch's departments in the federal government of the United States. It is the principal official advisory body to t ...
References
External links
What's a Senior Administration Official? a November 18, 2005 article from ''
Slate
Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic ro ...
''
{{Portal bar, Journalism, Politics, United States
Political terminology of the United States