Pence confident no one on his staff wrote NYT column

Vice President Mike Pence says he's "100 percent confident" that no one on his staff was involved with the anonymous New York Times column criticizing President Donald Trump's leadership.

"I know them. I know their character," Pence said in a taped interview aired Sunday by CBS' "Face the Nation."
Some pundits had speculated that Pence could be the "senior administration official" who wrote the opinion piece because it included language Pence has been known to use, like the unusual word "lodestar."
Pence said his staff had nothing to do with it, "Let me be very clear. I'm 100 percent confident that no one on the vice president's staff was involved in this anonymous editorial. I know my people," Pence said on "Face the Nation."
''They get up every day and are dedicated, just as much as I am, to advancing the president's agenda and supporting everything ... President Trump is doing for the people of this country."
Asked whether he had asked his staff about the op-ed, Pence said, "I don't have to ask them because I know them. I know their character. I know their dedication and I am absolutely confident that no one on the vice president's staff had anything to do with this."
He restated that he thinks the essay writer should do the "honorable thing and resign."
Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, disagreed that the opinion piece amounted to a national security threat and attributed Trump's musing about a Justice Department investigation "to a president who's lashing out."