“Judge not, yet ye be judged.” That would be good Christian advice for Mormon Senator Willard “Mitt” Romney to practice after being outed for a shameful misuse of a secretive Twitter handle to vent his alter-ego frustrations.
Romney’s ongoing feud with President Donald Trump is well-known, and many believe the failed presidential candidate harbors deep jealousy and resentment for the current Commander-in-Chief. The Utah senator was hit by far fewer false media narratives before his humiliating defeat to then-incumbent President Barack Obama in 2012. His failures to fight back made him look like a weakling, and voters re-elected one of the worst presidents on foreign and domestic policy in the country’s history.
After the historic GOP win over Hillary Clinton in 2016, the former never-Trumper arrived at the White House begging for the Secretary of State post. President Trump turned him away, and Romney has been acting like a spurned lover ever since. He has been a constant critic of the president and envious of the overwhelming success of the America First policies. Needless to say, President Trump has pushed back hard on Romney’s attacks.
“Mitt Romney never knew how to win,” Trump tweeted. “He is a pompous ‘ass’ who has been fighting me from the beginning, except when he begged me for my endorsement for his Senate run (I gave it to him), and when he begged me to be Secretary of State (I didn’t give it to him). He is so bad for R’s!”
In terms of keeping secrets, the American people may have been wise not to hand Romney the most sensitive classified materials. That’s because he gave away his salacious and secret Twitter handle — “Pierre Delecto” — during a routine interview with the Atlantic, and Slate editor Ashley Feinberg easily sleuthed him out.
“So, around that afternoon, I looked at my phone, and there were maybe four or five people tweeting at me with the paragraph from McKay Coppins’s (Atlantic) story. I didn’t really want to start looking for it, but all my other plans kind of got shot once I realized I had to do this, or I was gonna hate myself,” Feinberg said. “Maybe under a half an hour to find the one that I thought was his, but then I spent, like, four hours building a case for it.”
Everyday Americans who voted against Romney may feel vindicated that he never got the nuclear codes. And adding to his humiliation, the Utah senator reportedly confessed that he used the covert Pierre Delecto account to be a self-confessed “lurker.” If that sounds weirdly voyeuristic and gross, that’s because it is. His alter-ego anonymously follows 702 other accounts. The Twitter account with his true identity follows only 668. And it appears Romney used his deep state Twitter account to lend support for his out-of-step attacks on the president.
“Only one to hit Trump on character time and again,” Pierre Delecto reportedly tweeted in bizarre support of Sen. Romney.
Pierre Delecto also tweeted: “Agree on Trump’s awful decision. But what could the Senate do to stop it?”
He consistently “Liked” liberal tweets that attacked President Trump such as the following: “I’ve always thought that ‘invoke the 25th amendment!’ was a misguided, futile notion,” political analyst Jeff Greenfield tweeted. “But after this Tweet from the President, I’m reassessing.”
With Romney unmasked on Twitter, it’s easy to see his hypocrisy and person shortcomings in full view. He has long positioned himself as a man of God who fled Massachusetts to run for office among a higher Mormon population in Utah after Senator Orin Hatch retired. But his refined manners, slick haircut, and fancy suits cannot mask his willingness to stand in judgement of others. Many of the more down-to-earth Republicans are not amused by Romney-the-Lurker stooping so low.
“The man’s 72 years old. Having fake Twitter accounts on social media, that’s the work of kids, cowards, couch potatoes, and perverts like Carlos Danger. What on Earth does a United States senator do calling himself Pierre Delecto? If he’s got something to say, man up and say it,” former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said. “Let us all realize that this guy is not a team player. He’s still bitter because Donald Trump got elected, and he didn’t. He needs to get over it.”
Looks like judgement has come full circle for Mitt Romney.
