September 27, 2017

Trump Deletes a Bunch of Tweets Backing Loser in Alabama Primary

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Dan Anderson/ZUMA

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Shortly after congratulating Roy Moore, the winner in Tuesday’s Alabama Republican primary runoff, President Donald Trump deleted at least three tweets in which he had previously backed Moore’s opponent, incumbent Sen. Luther Strange.

Trump had campaigned for Strange, traveling to Hunstville, Alabama, on Friday to speak at a rally for the senator. There, he admitted he had some doubts about the endorsement. “I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake,” he said.

ProPublica, which catalogues Trump’s deleted tweets, captured the newly removed Strange posts:

Ethics groups, most notably Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, have argued that deleting presidential tweets could violate federal law mandating such communications be preserved.

Other tweets touting Trump’s support of Strange are still available:

Trump’s editing of his Twitter account on Tuesday did not extend to his most controversial tweets. The ones bashing professional athletes, for example, remain.

https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911572182060453893

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At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

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