Tuesday, October 29, 2013



White House aide fired over Twitter account

A White House national security official has been fired after it was discovered he was behind an anonymous Twitter account that criticised the Obama administration.

Jofi Joseph was non-proliferation director on the National Security Council and was involved in nuclear negotiations with Iran.

His postings on the @NatSecWonk account, which no longer is available on Twitter, often took shots at US administration policy and figures, including Secretary of State John Kerry and Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel, along with members of Congress.

One tweet said: "More people should be asking why John Kerry installed two former aides, both with ZERO foreign policy experience, into top posts at State."

Another tweet said: "That Obama only called Kerry/Hagel AFTER he made decision with his WH aides on going to Hill underscores how all foreign policy is WH-based." The tweet referred to Obama's surprise decision in late August to seek congressional authorisation for military strikes against Syria as punishment for a chemical weapons attack in August.

Joseph could not be reached for comment. No one answered the phone at a number believed to be his.

In a statement to Politico, Joseph took "complete responsibility" for the Twitter feed, saying it started as a "parody account". He apologised to those he insulted.

A White House official confirmed that Joseph no longer works for the administration, but declined to comment further on personnel matters.

He said White House staffers cannot access social media sites such as Twitter from the White House unless they have an official, authorised account. Carney and many other senior administration officials have official Twitter accounts and often send many tweets a day.

Source

Sounds like some valuable free speech was silenced

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

"parody account" is "valuable free speech"? WTF Jon.

Dean said...

Not likely that was a parody account. More likely it was called that as a defensive move.

Firing the guy could be expected, employees are supposed to support the administration without question. But denying him the right to state his opinion is a denial of first amendment rights.

Anonymous said...


Anon 2:10

"Started as" but parody is unnecessary and redundant when the WH is as incompetent as the current administration.

Anonymous said...

The Marxist-in-Chief and his administration cannot afford to have any in-house leaks, less he be impeached for treason and gross incompetence.

Anonymous said...

You don't have rights in the USA, just things the powers of be allow you to have. The USA Government is the enemy of its own people. They don't pay any attention to the 4th amendment via the NSA, why should they pay attention to the 1st? Who will stop them? Themselves via the courts that are in bed with them anyway?

Bird of Paradise said...

Living under a communists dictator

Anonymous said...

The 2nd Amendment will stop them.

Anonymous said...

"The 2nd Amendment will stop them". Don't count on it. Why do you think the NRA is so dead set against gun registration?