No, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany Hasn’t Deleted Tweets

Topline

An unfounded rumor went viral Friday accusing White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany of deleting tweets from her official government Twitter account, but that isn’t true, Forbes has confirmed.

White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks with members of the media at the White House in … [+] Washington, DC, October 2, 2020.

Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Key Facts

The rumor originated in a now-deleted tweet claiming, “@PressSec erased the last 4-5 days of her tweets.”

The idea was then promoted by journalist Andrew Fienberg, who said it “sounds like destruction of government records,” along with Biden supporter @sharonwhotweets, whose tweet accusing McEnany of deleting posts has had more than 1,300 retweets.

From the @PressSec account, McEnany called the rumor “fake news” and said she has “not deleted any tweets.”

Derek Willis, who runs Politwoops, a ProPublica tool that tracks deleted tweets from politicians, told Forbes there aren’t any recent deletions from the @PressSec account.

Not including Friday’s denial, it’s true there aren’t any tweets from @PressSec since October 30—but that just means McEnany hasn’t tweeted from the handle this week, not that posts were deleted.

McEnany has been tweeting about the election from her personal Twitter account, and it’s possible users looked at the @PressSec account and mistakenly thought tweets had been erased when they are actually on another account.

Key Background

Though Twitter has prevented misleading tweets from Trump and other high-profile accounts from being shared, misinformation from other sources is still spreading rampantly. There are a few viral hoaxes from left-leaning users, including one falsely asserting that 40,000 ballots in DeKalb County, Georgia, were rejected, but the vast majority of misinformation appears to be coming from Trump supporters erroneously accusing Democrats of “stealing” the election.