“Anonymous is a woman, the investigators deduced, noting the author’s disapproving remarks alleging a Trump habit of addressing accomplished female professionals as ‘sweetie’ and ‘honey.’” This is the sole basis on which Sperry hangs the contention that Anonymous is a woman. We would hope that a gentlemanly regard for treating accomplished women with respect is shared by at least some men within this White House.

A major focus of Sperry’s argument is that Coates and Anonymous are both represented by the same literary agent, Keith Urbahn, who worked with Coates when both were research assistants for Rumsfeld. But as Sperry notes, Urbahn represents a number of authors critical of Trump (including Jim Comey, John Bolton, and Marie Yovanovitch) and would be a natural choice to represent Anonymous. (Full disclosure: Urbahn also represents Erick Erickson, as well as any number of other conservative writers). Frankly, fingering a friend of Urbahn’s looks like an effort to pressure him into revealing the name of his client.

Sperry spends a good deal of space repeating vague speculations about Coates’s views of Trump, which cannot be verified due to the absence of any identified sources. The fact that she had advised Ted Cruz during the primaries was well known when the Trump administration hired her. Sperry complains that “there are no examples of her publicly praising the president,” which is perhaps a telling phrase, but one that misunderstands the discretion required to be an adviser on national security.