‘Using an Official Government Social Media Account to Incite and Encourage Harassment…and to Threaten the Press?’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders late Thursday morning urged Americans to go after The New York Times, which on Wednesday published a devastating op-ed from a senior Trump administration official blasting the president and the White House. She did so from her official White House Twitter account, which at the very least should raise eyebrows from First Amendment advocates.
“The media’s wild obsession with with the identity of the anonymous coward is recklessley tarnishing the reputation of thousands of great Americans who proudly serve our country and work for President Trump,” Huckabee Sanders tweeted. “Stop. If you want to know who this gutless loser is, call the opinion desk of the failing NYT,” she continued, offering the newspaper’s telephone number.
“They are the only ones complicit in this deceitful act,” she added.
Her father joined in, calling the paper of record “the NY Slimes.”
One conservative columnist called the move “disturbing.”
And a journalist turned the tables on the press secretary:
Meanwhile, other Twitter users were not amused: