Last week over 40 White House interns signed a letter to President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris denouncing the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people and calling for an immediate ceasefire. Now, some people are speculating that the letter may have been put together by somebody who wasn’t even a White House intern.
The letter, first published by NBC News, claimed to include interns from a variety of White House advisory offices, including the Domestic Policy Council, the Executive Office of the President, and the Office of the Vice President.
“We were horrified by the brutal October 7th Hamas attack on Israeli civilians, and we are horrified by the brutal and genocidal response by the Israeli government, funded by our American tax dollars, which has killed over 14,000 innocent Palestinian civilians in Gaza, a large percentage of whom are children,” the interns wrote.
Now, a report in the Wednesday edition of Politico’s West Wing Playbook newsletter raises the question of just who organized the letter. According to Politico, since the letter was published last week rumors have been swirling in Washington that the person behind the letter may have had no affiliation with the White House at all.
They related reporting by The Hill, which cited a source claiming that the letter was organized by a woman named “Thara” who didn’t have any official position in the White House.
“According to a screenshot…a user named THARA NAGARAJAN mysteriously popped into the White House intern GroupMe chat the Sunday before the letter became public,” Politico reported.
“Hi all, as the genocide of Palestinians continues, there is a public letter for White House interns to sign anonymously for those who stand with Palestine,” Politico reported the mysterious Nagarajan as writing, and said she also added a link to a Google form for interns to sign by 6pm the next day.
The claim had people on social media buzzing about who exactly Nagarajan was.
“No one could figure out who Nagarajan was,” Politico reported, “or how she got access to the intern chat.” After she dropped her message and the link she quickly left the group, which is hosted on GroupMe and contains around 150 White House interns.
“Was this foreign or maligned influence that infiltrated WH group?” asked @MRBartlettNH on X.
While there isn’t any evidence of foreign intelligence involvement, other people speculated that the story might be a way for interns to shift the responsibility for the letter onto somebody who doesn’t exist.
“That’s how the interns save themselves – create an anonymous person to take the blame. Hahahaha!” wrote @gotchatheregrin.
“This is the most pathetic excuse I’ve seen,” wrote Townhall write John Hasson. “It’s like a kid blaming their imaginary friend for stealing cookies[.]”
According to the Playbook report, at least one intern who signed the letter reported that they were “very scared” that the Biden White House was trying to root out the signers.
“Right now,” Politico claimed, “their only goal is to … make it off campus without being discovered as one of the letter signers.”