FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo listens as President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, U.S., July 18, 2018. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on Thursday he was not the author of an anonymous column published in the New York Times by a senior Trump administration official who described efforts to thwart parts of President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“It’s not mine,” Pompeo said during a trip to New Delhi, India.

Pompeo, who previously served as Trump’s CIA director, also slammed the Times for publishing the piece.

“If it’s accurate ... they should not well have chosen to take a disgruntled, deceptive, bad actor’s word for anything and put it in their newspaper,” Pompeo told reporters.

In the column, the anonymous official asserted that many senior officials in Trump’s administration have been working from within to frustrate parts of his agenda to protect the country from his worst impulses.

In the piece, the official described “early whispers” among members of Trump’s Cabinet to take steps to remove him as president, but added they decided against it to avoid a constitutional crisis.

(This version of the story has been refiled to delete superfluous “in” in first paragraph)