House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other prominent congressional Democrats cited a tweet sent by an account posing as former White House National Security Adviser Michael Flynn in order to insinuate that other members of the Trump administration should be held accountable for wrongdoing.
“I’ll say this, I didn’t know until I heard from my colleague that the tweet of General Flynn today was ’scapegoat,’ ” Mrs. Pelosi said in a press conference Tuesday. “Scapegoat. Do you know what a scapegoat is? That means, in a community where people want to absolve themselves of guilt, they get a goat, and they heap all of the ills onto the goat, and then they run the goat out of town. So the inference to be drawn from his statement is that other people have blame that should be shared in all of this.”
Mrs. Pelosi was referring to several tweets sent early on Tuesday morning by a parody account posing as Mr. Flynn, who resigned from his White House post on Monday night.
“While I accept full responsibility for my actions, I feel it is unfair that I have been made the sole scapegoat for what happened,” one fake tweet read.
“But if a scapegoat is what’s needed for this administration to continue to take this great nation forward, I am proud to do my duty,” read another.
The Twitter account acknowledges in its description that it is a parody account. It has fewer than 4,000 followers and is not verified.
But Mrs. Pelosi was not the only prominent Democrat to cite the fake tweets on Tuesday.
Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat and the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, said a public hearing is necessary to find out if any additional members of the Trump administration should be held responsible.
“Just this morning, Flynn tweeted — and this is a quote — ’scapegoat.’ End of quote. Scapegoat. He basically described himself as a scapegoat,” Mr. Cummings said. “And so I believe we need to hold a public hearing with Flynn to get to the bottom of this.”
But if a scapegoat is what’s needed for this Administration to continue to take this great nation forward, I am proud to do my duty.
— Michael Flynn (@GenMikeFlynn) February 14, 2017
• Bradford Richardson can be reached at brichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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