A C-SPAN reporter scheduled to moderate an upcoming presidential debate who blamed hackers for a perceived anti-Trump tweet has a history of claiming his Twitter account was hacked.
Tweets from 2012 and 2013 posted on Twitter by journalist Yashar Ali showed two tweets from Steve Scully’s account apologizing to his followers for being hacked.
Tweets from 2012 and 2013 pic.twitter.com/jdeKqq7UEW
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) October 9, 2020
“@Scaramucci should I respond to trump,” Scully’s Twitter account posted Friday night in what appeared to be a message to President Trump’s former communications director Anthony Scaramucci asking for advice on how to respond to attacks that the president has made against him.
Shortly after the tweet to Scaramucci (who is a now vocal critic of the president) was posted, Commission on Presidential Debates Co-Chairman Frank Fahrenkopf claimed that Scully’s Twitter account had been hacked.
“I don’t know this question about whether he tweeted something out or not, I do know, and you’ll probably pick up on it in a minute, that he was hacked. … Apparently, there’s something now that’s been on television and the radio saying that he talked to Scaramucci. … He was hacked. It didn’t happen,” Fahrenkopf said.
C-SPAN released a statement saying that Scully “believes” his account was hacked.
— CSPAN (@cspan) October 9, 2020
Pollster Lee Carter told Fox & Friends over the weekend that the hacking claim should be “easy to prove.”
“This should be something that’s very, very easy to clear up, and if it turns out that it’s not a hack, it’s a really big issue,” Carter said. “I’d like to give the benefit of the doubt, and I’d like to get some answers.”
Scully was scheduled to moderate the second debate between Trump and Biden, but that debate has been canceled after Trump rejected a rule change mandating virtual participation.
