One thing in the Trump administration is constant: leaks

A procession of denials by Cabinet secretaries and White House officials has done little to abate Donald Trump’s rage over the anonymous op-ed The New York Times published on Wednesday. Flying to Fargo, North Dakota, on Friday, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he wants Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate the writer of the piece.

[...]

Trump continues to be in a dark mood. “Rip-shit,” one person familiar with his thinking told me. “He’s punch-drunk,” one outside adviser said. “He’s been hit so hard this week he doesn’t know what to do.”

[...]

With Trump so far unable to execute a strategy to stanch the drip-drip-drip of damaging disclosures, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have taken the lead in getting control of the crisis.

  Vanity Fair

Because they've done it so well in the past?

Earlier this week, they told Trump they were deeply troubled by the accounts in Woodward’s book and blamed Chief of Staff John Kelly for many of the leaks, an outside adviser close to them told me. “‘He’s destroying your presidency,’” Ivanka told her father, the outside adviser, who was briefed on the conversation, said.

Possible, but that's twice removed from the actual scene. Kinda slim to hang a report on.

According to three sources, Jared and Ivanka floated a theory on Wednesday that Kelly could be behind the Times op-ed. Under this scenario, the sources said, the op-ed was written by Zachary Fuentes, the deputy chief of staff, at the direction of Kelly. Jared and Ivanka have told people they suspect this because Kelly is the only one with an ego so large as to have convinced himself that he’s saving the country from Trump, which was one of the op-ed’s principal arguments. [...] (A White House spokesperson said this is “untrue.” Fuentes has denied writing the piece.)

I'd agree Kelly does indeed have the ego. But this is not a new idea. There's been speculation and reports since the beginning that some people in the administration believe it's their duty to stay on and try to prevent Trump from destroying the universe.

Trump disagreed with their theory, an outside adviser said. He told one ally that the op-ed was possibly written by someone who wants to derail Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing by weakening the president this week, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Ivanka has been frustrated that her father won’t take action against Kelly, an outside adviser said. She’s told people that Trump still sees Kelly as a “John Wayne figure,” and that Trump is worried that if Kelly is fired, he’ll become even more dangerous as an outside critic.

Coward. 

This could we be true, as there've been rumors of getting rid of Kelly, and of Javanka's dislike of him, for quite some time.

The Times reported yesterday that the White House has a list of around 12 potential suspects.

What does that tell you? The person who wrote the article self-identifies as a senior official. If they think 12 senior officials are possibly responsible, they're admitting that Trump is being undermined and that a lot of people high in the administration don't think he's fit to run the country.

A White House spokesperson said there is no 12-person list.

They would say that, wouldn't they.

Peter Mirijanian, a spokesperson for Abbe Lowell, attorney for Jared Kushner, emailed after publication: "We told Vanity Fair three times that it's[sic] reporter or whatever anonymous source he claimed to have said this was flat out wrong. Jared and Ivanka never said this to anyone because the idea never crossed their mind. This is Vanity Fair's latest chapter of fiction that should never have been published as 'news.'"

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.