C-SPAN political editor Steve Scully said his Twitter account was hacked on Thursday night and denied sending a tweet to former Trump White House official Anthony Scaramucci asking if he should respond to President Trump’s statements during a Fox News interview.
“Last night a tweet from Steve Scully, C-SPAN’s Political Editor, appeared on his timeline communicating with Anthony Scaramucci. Steve Scully did not originate the tweet and believes his account has been hacked,” C-SPAN said in a statement. “The Commission on Presidential Debates has stated publicly that the tweet was not sent by Scully himself and is investigating with the help of authorities. When additional information is available, we will release it.”
In a Friday morning interview with Fox News, CPD co-chairman Frank Fahrenkopf also asserted that Scully — who was set to moderate the second presidential debate — was “hacked” and did not send out the tweet to Scaramucci.
In the since-deleted tweet, Scully’s Twitter account tweeted out, “@Scaramucci should I respond to trump” around the time that Trump phoned into Fox News for an interview with Sean Hannity and accused Scully of being a “Never Trumper.”
Scaramucci, who briefly served as communications director in Trump’s White House but has since become an outspoken critic of the president, responded at the time: “Ignore. He is having a hard enough time. Some more bad stuff about to go down.”
The following morning, Scaramucci defended Scully. “I accept @SteveScully at his word. Let’s not cancel anymore people from our culture for absolutely something like this. It’s insignificant. He is an objective journalist,” he tweeted.
Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer also tweeted in support of Scully, writing on Friday morning that the C-SPAN political editor is “good man” and “did not send the tweet.”
But on Friday morning, the president himself took the opportunity to reiterate his attack: “Steve Scully, the second Debate Moderator, is a Never Trumper, just like the son of the great Mike Wallace. Fix!!” Fox News host Chris Wallace, the son of the late CBS newsman Mike Wallace, moderated last week’s first presidential debate between Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden.
A spokesperson for Twitter declined to comment.