White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said former national security adviser John Bolton’s “advanced age” could be to blame for being locked out of his Twitter account after he left the Trump administration.
“Sometimes, I’ll use my father as an example, somebody who is of an advanced age may not understand that all you have to do is contact Twitter and reset your password if you’ve forgotten it so I’ll just leave it at that,” Grisham told Fox Business on Friday.
Bolton, 71, is two years younger than President Trump.
Bolton, who resigned in September, reemerged on Twitter on Friday after a more than two-month hiatus on the social media platform.
“Glad to be back on Twitter after more than two months. For the backstory, stay tuned,” Bolton wrote.
Glad to be back on Twitter after more than two months. For the backstory, stay tuned……..
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) November 22, 2019
“We have now liberated the Twitter account, previously suppressed unfairly in the aftermath of my resignation as National Security Advisor,” he said, adding that the White House had refused to give him access to his account.
We have now liberated the Twitter account, previously suppressed unfairly in the aftermath of my resignation as National Security Advisor. More to come…..
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) November 22, 2019
He thanked Twitter for “rightfully returning control of my account.”
In full disclosure, the @WhiteHouse never returned access to my Twitter account. Thank you to @twitter for standing by their community standards and rightfully returning control of my account.
— John Bolton (@AmbJohnBolton) November 22, 2019
Trump denied to Fox & Friends that he had anything to do with the matter.
Bolton told the New York Times that the White House “attached software” to his account.
“They would not give it back. A representative of mine spoke with John Eisenberg, who said he would get it released, and it never happened. So finally we went to Twitter.”
Eisenberg is the top National Security Council lawyer. The software referenced by Bolton may have been connected to efforts to archive tweets in following presidential records laws.
