This archive report was first published on 23 November 2019.
Washington, D.C. - November 23, 2019
Former National Security Adviser John Bolton has been making headlines with a series of tweets about his Twitter account being frozen by the White House after his resignation in September.
Bolton, who has been at the center of the impeachment inquiry into President Trump, had been waiting for a court to decide whether he has to testify about his involvement in the Ukraine scandal.
However, instead of revealing any new information about the scandal, Bolton used his tweets to tease Washington about his Twitter account being frozen by the White House.
“Glad to be back on Twitter after more than two months,” Bolton wrote in one of his tweets. “For the backstory, stay tuned……..”
Over the course of the day, Bolton posted a few more messages, not about the Ukraine matter, but about his own two-month battle to “liberate” his Twitter account from a White House that refused to give it back when he resigned.
According to Bolton, he had turned over control of his personal Twitter account to the White House when he joined the National Security Council last year. An avid Twitter user since 2010, Bolton brought a strong following to the new job and wanted it back when he left.
After Trump said on Twitter on September 10 that he had fired him, Bolton tweeted 12 minutes later that that was not true. “I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, ‘Let’s talk about it tomorrow,’” Bolton wrote, without elaborating.
That was his last tweet until Friday. Shortly afterward, he discovered that he no longer had control of the account. The White House had evidently changed his password and his verifying email address.
“The White House attached software to the account,” Bolton said by telephone on Friday. “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.”
Mr. Eisenberg is the top National Security Council lawyer and himself a player in the Ukraine drama. It was not clear what kind of software Bolton was referring to, but it appeared related to government efforts to archive messages in keeping with presidential records law.
Trump denied freezing Bolton’s account. “No, of course not. Of course not,” he said when asked on Friday on “Fox and Friends.” “No, I actually had a good relationship with John. We disagreed on some things and some methods, but I actually had a good relationship.”
