UPDATE: Watchdog claims White House violated ethics rules
- November 4, 2022
Katrina Lusteck, DML
A rightwing pressure group on Friday accused the White House of breaching public records laws by deleting a tweet this week, saying it undermined freedom of information requests.
Officials were forced into an embarrassing Twitter climbdown on Wednesday when they had to remove a claim that President Joe Biden was responsible for seniors getting the biggest increase in Social Security checks for a decade.
As fact-checkers were quick to point out, the raise was linked to inflation and required by law.
Protect the Public’s Trust, a watchdog group, demanded an investigation, saying the deletion was a violation of the Presidential Records Act.
“Enforcement of public records laws, such as FOIA, is virtually impossible if records retention policies are not enforced, including those covering social media,” Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust, said.