President Trump’s advisers briefly discussed the possibility of forcing members of his administration to undergo lie detector tests in an effort to uncover the senior official who penned the scathing op-ed in the New York Times, according to the paper.

Republican Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, an ally of the president, told reporters Thursday that he believes any White House staffer with a security clearance should undergo a polygraph test.

“I think it’s not unprecedented for people with security clearances to be asked to, whether or not they were revealing things against the law under oath and also by lie detector,” he said on Capitol Hill, CNN reported.

“We use a lie detector test routinely for CIA agents and FBI agents. I think if you have a security clearance in the White House, I think it would be acceptable to use a lie detector test and ask people whether they are talking to the media against the policy of the White House.”

He continued: “This could be very dangerous if the person who is talking to the media is actually revealing national security secrets. So, yes, I think we need to get to the bottom of it.”

Other people in Trump’s inner circle also are considering asking senior officials suspected of writing the column to sign sworn affidavits that could be used against them in court, the Times reported.

An outside adviser told the paper that the White House has compiled a list of about 12 people suspected of writing the op-ed, which slams Trump as a morally unmoored, “impetuous” president who acts according to his own whims while many of his top aides thwart his “more misguided impulses until he is out of office.”

A cavalcade of the highest-ranking members of the Trump administration — including Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — denounced the damning column Thursday and denied authoring it.