A senior official for the Department of Housing and Urban Development has been nominated to become the next director for the Office of Personnel Management.
John Gibbs is currently HUD’s acting assistant secretary for community planning and development. His nomination to the OPM position by President Trump was announced Monday.
In 2018, CNN released a report exposing tweets Gibbs posted in 2016 that spread a conspiracy theory about John Podesta and Hillary Clinton. In tweets accessible using the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, Gibbs repeatedly used the hashtag #SpiritCooking.
That hashtag references a conspiracy theory that Clinton and Podesta drank bodily fluids at a secret satanic dinner.
In response to a tweet that read, “#hillaryclinton just lost more black votes with her campaign manager having Satanic #spiritcooking. We don’t play that,” Gibbs responded, “True, true, true. #Trump #SpiritCooking #BlackLivesMatter.”
At the time, Gibbs did not return CNN’s request for comment. A HUD spokesman declined to address the issue, asserting that the agency would not weigh in on tweets posted while someone was not a public official. The Washington Examiner reached out to Gibbs in light of the nomination, but he did not immediately return the request. The Washington Examiner also reached out to the White House but did not receive comment on the issue.
If confirmed as director of the OPM, Gibbs will be the administration’s fourth and will be in charge of overseeing the federal government’s civilian workforce.
