Darlene Superville and David Klepper at AP:
President Donald Trump retweeted a post that included the alleged name of the anonymous whistleblower whose complaint ultimately led to Trump’s impeachment by the House.
Just before midnight Friday, Trump retweeted a message from Twitter user @Surfermom77, an account that claims to be a woman named Sophia who lives in California. The account shows some indications of automation, including an unusually high amount of activity and profile pictures featuring stock images from the internet.
By Saturday morning, the post seemed to have disappeared on many users’ feeds, suggesting Trump had deleted it, though it could still be found in other ways, including on a website that logs every presidential tweet.
The retweet then reappeared Saturday night. Twitter told The Associated Press that an outage with one of its systems caused tweets on some accounts, including Trump’s, to be visible to some but not others.
Trump has repeatedly backed efforts to unmask the whistleblower. But his Friday night retweet marks the first time he has directly sent the alleged name into the Twitter feed of his 68 million followers.
Unmasking the whistleblower, who works in the intelligence field, could violate federal protection laws that have historically been supported by both parties.
Mary Papenfuss at Huffington Post:
Twitter followers were agog after President Donald Trump retweeted a meme claiming Jesus Christ likes him more than Barack Obama.
The two-year-old message from a Trump fan called the president “heaven sent.” Trump responded during another wild night of Twitter rants from Mar-a-Lago with a retweet and a “Thank you!” The tweet included a meme of none other than “Jesus Christ” carrying luggage and apparently returning to America (did he have to cross a border to get there?). “Obama kicked me out,” says “Jesus.” “Trump invited me back.”
A Dirty Cop at the highest level. Scum! https://t.co/9t2qETqgcL— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 28, 2019
