Donald Trump’s mentor, Roy Cohn, may have been the inspiration for the president’s obsession with treason. As the president said in mid-2017, referring incorrectly to Cohn’s first big case: “You know what treason is? That’s Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for giving [the Soviet Union] the atom bomb.” The Rosenbergs were actually convicted of espionage in 1951 and executed in 1953, with Cohn whispering in the judge’s ear on an almost daily basis.

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But Trump, with his crackerjack legal mind, apparently believes that everyone who crosses him is guilty of treason. Referring to the New York Times in a Thursday night interview for (naturally) Fox & Friends, Trump said: “The Times should never have done that. What they’ve done, virtually it’s treason.”

The Times’ sin, which might justify a firing squad if Trump were judge and jury, was to publish the confessions of an anonymous “senior official” in the administration. An odd amalgam of a hostage video and a samizdat manifesto, the op-ed heard round the world warned that Trump “is detrimental to the health of our republic”. And yet it also bizarrely insisted “there are bright spots that the near ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture”.

What was equally revealing, though, was the accompanying bylined drawing (Delcan & Company) that showed a map of America, pivoting on the tip of Texas, that is being saved from toppling off a cliff by four brave men and women straining at a rope. The imagery, about as a subtle as Soviet realism, was a reference to the op-ed’s paean to the “unsung heroes in and around the White House” who are bravely serving as the “adults in the room”.

This reflects the great Washington illusion that there are indispensable officials in a dangerously misguided or lawless administration. It was why Vietnam critic George Ball, undersecretary of state and UN ambassador for Lyndon Johnson, loyally served a president he sometimes privately scorned. The same pattern repeated itself in 2003 with then secretary of state Colin Powell’s feckless internal opposition to launching the Iraq war without major international backing.

Resignation in protest has an honorable history in American life dating back to former secretary of state William Jennings Bryan stepping down in 1915 because he opposed Woodrow Wilson’s efforts to orchestrate the nation’s entry into the first world war. But the towering examples are Elliot Richardson and William Ruckelshaus, who resigned after refusing to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox in Richard Nixon’s 1973 “Saturday night massacre”.

It is telling that the op-ed’s author refused to step outside the gates of the White House to reveal all that he or she knows

It is telling that the op-ed’s author refused to step outside the gates of the White House to reveal all that he or she knows about an “erratic” president with “anti-democratic” values. The issue is not that the senior official is “GUTLESS”, as Trump tweeted, but rather that Anonymous wants all the benefits of being inside coupled with the acclaim for a self-depiction as a courageous rebel.

Gary Cohn, Trump’s first White House economic adviser, operated with a similar two-faced approach. Rather than loudly resigning over the president’s tolerance for bigotry in Charlottesville, Cohn stayed on in hopes of being named chairman of the Federal Reserve.

Sure, as Bob Woodward reveals in his new book Fear, Cohn repeatedly crept into the Oval Office to snatch papers off the president’s desk to prevent Trump from precipitously withdrawing from trade treaties. (It is tempting to picture Cohn dressed in all black like a cat burglar.) But, in a democracy, Cohn probably should have instead resigned and used his clout to appeal to Congress to curtail Trump’s trade authority.

Now Washington, obsessed with the identity of the duplicitous “senior official”, is hunting the mole with far greater avidity than the British chased Kim Philby. An amusing aspect is that the news media appears to be taking seriously denials from the likes of Mike Pence. Or that many reporters believe that an analysis of the prose style of the op-ed will reveal the identity, even though many “senior officials” never write anything longer than an email themselves.

Until proven otherwise, I assume that the Times’ pen pal is someone who believes that, even at this late date, he or she can still wriggle back to a position of respectability in Washington. And, yes, the record of Nixon alumni suggests that such rehabilitation might be possible.

But, until late in Watergate, Nixon managed to separate his genuine policy achievements (from creating the Environmental Protection Agency to the opening to China) from his lawless, paranoid side. In contrast, Trump in the White House, judging from both Woodward and the Times op-ed, is the same arrogant, ignorant and cruel termagant who displayed all his ugly impulses daily on television in 2016.

Everybody who entered the Trump administration in a senior role knew the itinerary of the cruise that they were embarking on. That’s why the so-called “adults” on deck are more Trump’s enablers than they are heroic mariners guiding the ship through shark-filled waters.