Pelosi and Cummings cite tweet from fake Mike Flynn account

The account “@GenMikeFlynn” tweeted early Tuesday that he was being made into a “scapegoat” for his contacts with the Russian government. However, that’s not Flynn’s Twitter account — he had previously tweeted from @GenFlynn, which was deleted last month.

Apparently someone in the offices of Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi didn’t notice the differences.

“Madame Leader, just this morning, Flynn tweeted that he is a ‘scapegoat.’ I believe we need to hold a public hearing with Flynn to get to the bottom of this,” Cummings said at a press conference. “We need to get his security clearance documents to find out if he was honest on those forms, and we need to know how much he got paid to have dinner with Vladimir Putin.”

Later on Tuesday afternoon, Pelosi also called out Flynn for the tweet, even though the account was a parody.

Ema O’Connor, a reporter for Buzzfeed, tweeted Pelosi was told by an aide later that the account wasn’t real.

“What do you mean it’s fake,” Pelosi reportedly asked.

Later on, the House Oversight Democrats’ Twitter account acknowledged the error.

“Yes, sorry, to correct the record – just learned like many others that the Flynn tweet this morning was fake,” the statement read, pointing to news reports on the tweet that were incorrect.