John D. O'Connor, Attorney who disclosed who Deep Throat was,

[mobeau69]

was on AC-360. Jim Sciutto was in for AC and he failed big time. Never asked him who he thought it might be and, running out of time in the segment, was trying to cut away. O'Connor, due to Sciutto's incompetence, had to blurt out near the very the end of the interview, that he knew who Anonymous is. Sciutto just sat there like a dummy so O'Connor said "Do you want to know who?". Finally, Sciutto asked him who he thought it is. And he said Jon Huntsman. No follow-up at all by Sciutto! O'Connor wanted to explain why but Sciutto just said something like we shall see and then went to commercials.

Total fail, Jim.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. Why would O'Connor know any more about the writer than anyone else?

O'Connor knew Felt was Deep Throat only because Felt admitted it at the urging of his family, and O'Connor, acting as Felt's attorney, was his intermediary to Vanity Fair which published an article, "I Am Deep Throat." There's no reason to believe O'Connor has any inside knowledge about the NYT op-ed writer.

[mobeau69]

3. Maybe there is a reason. But he wasn't even asked to explain.

That's the point I tried to make, Ocelot.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Sciutto's producer was probably yelling at him in his earpiece that he had to cut the segment

and go to commercial. The talking heads don't always have a lot of control over when they have to cut off an interview.

[mobeau69]

6. True but O'Connor seemed very confident and I wanted to hear what he had to say.

Jim should've gotten to that area a little sooner IMO.

[jcgoldie]

2. Slate agrees

Based on the language that's used in the Op-ed repeatedly matching the way Huntsman writes.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. The problem with that theory is that Huntsman, as Ambassador to Russia,

isn't in or around the White House as much as most of the other "suspects," and wouldn't have the same opportunity to be trying to manage Trump, although his somewhat more moderate political position and his involvement in foreign policy might make him a possibility (he's denied it, which doesn't mean much - Mark Felt denied being Deep Throat for more than 30 years). As to the writing - if I were a high profile person who wanted to write an anonymous op-ed, I'd disguise my writing style, which wouldn't be all that difficult. There are multiple text analytics resources on the internet that could be very useful because they can identify your writing style and "tics" that we all have. Knowing exactly how you write would make it possible to disguise your style.