A spokesman for Mike Pence on Thursday denied the vice president might be the official who wrote a scathing, unsigned column in The New York Times about President Donald Trump.
On the internet, the focus on Pence as the possible author apparently stemmed from the use of the obscure word '"odestar" in the column. Pence is said to have used that term in several speeches in the past.
But Pence spokesman Jarrod Agen insisted the vice president did not write the piece, which said Trump's own staff sees him as a danger to the nation who needs to be protected from his own erratic impulses.
"The Vice President puts his name on his Op-Eds. The @nytimes should be ashamed and so should the person who wrote the false, illogical, and gutless op-ed," Agen wrote on Twitter.
"Our office is above such amateur acts."
Trump reacted furiously to the publication of the editorial.
He asked if it could be considered treasonous, assailed the Times for the "gutless" story and questioned whether the senior official it was attributed to actually existed.