Jofi Joseph, an official in the National Security Staff at the White
House, was fired last week after being caught as the tweeter behind
@natsecwonk, a feed that’s been leaking internal information since 2011.
Josh Rogin reports.
A
White House national security official was fired last week after being
caught as the mystery Tweeter who has been tormenting the foreign policy
community with insulting comments and revealing internal Obama
administration information for over two years.
Jofi
Joseph, a director in the non-proliferation section of the National
Security Staff at the White House, has been surreptitiously tweeting
under the moniker @natsecwonk, a Twitter feed famous inside Washington
policy circles since it began in February, 2011 until it was shut down
last week. Two administration officials confirmed that the mystery
tweeter was Joseph, who has also worked at the State Department and on
Capitol Hill for Senators Bob Casey (D-PA) and Joe Biden. Until
recently, he was part of the administration's team working on
negotiations with Iran.
During
his time tweeting under the @natsecwonk name, Joseph openly criticized
the policies of his White House bosses and often insulted their
intellect and appearance. At different times, he insulted or criticized
several top White House and State Department officials, including former
National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor
Ben Rhodes, Secretary of State John Kerry, and many many others.
The Daily Beast saved a long record of @natsecwonk's tweets prior to the shutting down of his Twitter feed.
“I'm
a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a
vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me,” he once tweeted.
“Was
Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Wiener?
Almost as bad a pairing as Samantha Powers and Cass Sunstein ....,” he
tweeted on another occasion, insulting a top Clinton aide, a then
Congressman, and two White House senior officials in one tweet.
The Daily Beast Senior Correspondent Josh Rogin joins 'Good Morning America' and 'Today' to discuss @natsecwonk.
Joseph's
snark was not confined to his Obama administration colleagues. He also
took aim at senior Republican figures and lowly GOP Hill staffers.
“So
when will someone do us the favor of getting rid of Sarah Palin and the
rest of her white trash family? What utter useless garbage .... ,” he
tweeted last October.
During
the 2012 Presidential campaign, he lashed out at conservative
journalists and members of the presidential campaign staff of Mitt
Romney
“@MiekeEoyang
Come on, I expected better of you. @jrubinblogger is CRAZY unhinged
while @noonanjo is an overweight paid Romney shill,” he tweeted,
referring to the Washington Post's conservative blogger Jen Rubin and
Romney campaign national security staffer John Noonan.
For
many in the foreign policy community reacting Tuesday night, the
revelation that Joseph was the mystery tweeter @natsecwonk was a shock
because Joseph was well known among policy wonks and his wife, Carolyn
Leddy, is a well-respected professional staffer on the Republican side
of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
But
inside the administration, there was little sympathy for the man who
they feel had betrayed their confidence while taunting them all the
while.
“My friends call me Batman,” he once tweeted.
A White House spokesman confirmed that Joseph no longer works there but declined further comment.
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long.
Josh Rogin is senior correspondent for national security and politics for The Daily Beast. He previously worked at Newsweek, Foreign Policy magazine, Congressional Quarterly, Federal Computer Week magazine, and Japan’s leading daily newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C.
For inquiries, please contact The Daily Beast at editorial@thedailybeast.com.
end quote from:
Loose Lips Sink Ships. Just like the saying from World War II this is equally true today. Communication is the blessing of everyone and simultaneously the death of everyone. This is something for all of us to think about.
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