It would not surprise me if Trump had some geek guys set up a secret email account out of Fairfax, back early in the campaign, then go nightly to pass along ‘tips’ to the NY Times....building up a relationship.
The Times people would be stupid enough to think it’s some character in the administration and glee over the whole thing. Trump would go and do fake ‘hunts’ for the guy. Then toward the election of 2020, he’d announce that he was the ‘resistance’ guy.
The big surprise in the novel 1984 was that the “resistance” was really being ran by the government to catch those that dared to resist.
Is it possible that President Trump read 1984? /s