Whoopi Goldberg seemed to suggest that the anonymous op-ed by a senior Trump administration official may have been released by someone who wanted to prove the existence of a “deep state.”

“I don’t know if I believe this,” Goldberg said Thursday on ABC’s “The View.” An official published a New York Times op-ed Wednesday claiming to be part of the resistance to President Donald Trump.

“Something about this — there is something stinky about the op-ed for me,” she continued. “I’ll tell you. … The timing is too odd, and it gives all of the — what’s the better word — the folks who think that there’s a deep state and all that kind of stuff, it sort of gives them more things to make this particular man in the White House a victim.”

“‘Look at what they’re doing to him, look at how they’re treating him.’ I’m not positive that I believe that this is from someone who is actually doing stuff. That’s just me. My gut is saying, ah, a little smelly [in] a couple of places.” (RELATED: NYT’s Phone Lines Blow Up After Sanders Tweets Number)

The comments came Thursday during a panel discussion on “The View” about the piece reportedly by an “anonymous administration official” that at times painted the president’s leadership in a negative light.

Earlier, co-host Abby Huntsman suggested that the article was probably written by “a group of people.”

“It’s a decision that you have to make,” Huntsman added. “Do you serve someone that you often disagree with? You don’t love their style of leadership, but you love this country. And you feel like what you can do in your job can help everybody else. You can be as the article said, the adult in the room. What do you do? Do you step aside and you say, ‘I’m going to resign, I’m going to be fired?’ If I’m speaking for myself, I’d rather the best people in that room to help out this country.”

“I don’t think that resigning is a — I don’t really believe that resigning is an option for this person,” Joy Behar responded. “Because it would be just another, ‘I’m coming out, saying all these things that everybody knows already.’ We saw it in several books. People say it all the time.”

“This more subversive way this is being played out, I think, is a little more frightening to the Republicans in power, who are just ignoring everything that he does so that they can get [Brett] Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court. And once they get Kavanaugh in the Supreme Court, it’s possible they’ll turn on Trump, too. Because they will have gotten everything they want. So why do you need him anymore? You could have [Vice President Mike] Pence in there who will do the same thing.”

“I think this person is patriot,” Sunny Hostin said next. “I think this person is certainly putting our country first. … I also think that this person is probably saving our country.”