EAST AURORA, N.Y. —  The essay is titled "I Am Part of The Resistance Inside The Trump Administration."

Former Donald Trump campaign staffer Michael Caputo called the column published Wednesday by the New York Times "unprecedented" but not altogether surprising. He said over the past 18 months he's watched many of the president's closest supporters purged from his administration.

"It's very clear that there are a lot of people in the Trump Administration that don't support him," Caputo said. "That's been a problem since the very beginning."

He said he doesn't speak to the president directly any more out of design. Caputo is a witness in the investigation regarding Russia's involvement in the 2016 election. However, he said he knows a lot of people around the president and has his own theory on who wrote the essay.

"I believe I know who it is but I don't want to name that person unless I see some proof," Caputo said.

He called the author a coward attempting to stage an administrative coup. Caputo said typically someone who disagrees with a president's policy would quit and then speak his or her mind, not hide behind anonymity.

"They're also diabolical because they're trying to first of all throw us off the scent and try to make it look like (James) Mattis or (Mike) Pence or (John) Kelly have written this but in addition to that, they're trying to convince the president that these people are walking against him in his administration," he said.

Caputo said the essay in itself is not criminal but he believes whoever wrote it has likely broken the law in other ways. He said the president should quietly sniff the person out.

"Figure out who did this. Investigate them and if they've committed crimes like leaking classified information, prosecute them and put them in jail," Caputo said.

However, he said the administration cannot get distracted from the November mid-term election in the process.

"This op-ed is timed to depress the turnout of the 'deplorables' to make sure that they don't come to the polls on November 6 so the Democrats can take over the House and they can impeach the president," he said.