Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner intervened when other officials tried restoring President Trump’s social media presence on sites that are often havens for extremists, such as Gab, following an unprecedented ban from several major platforms.
According to an outside adviser and an administration official, Kushner and deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino blocked efforts by other aides, including the personnel chief Johnny McEntee, to get the President on fringe social media platforms after he was suspended in some fashion from almost every major one, including Twitter, Facebook and, now, YouTube.
Those officials had initially attempted to use other Twitter accounts, including those run by campaign officials, to tweet in Trump’s name.
The White House did not immediately respond to a CNN request for comment.
In the context of impeachment: Trump’s avenues for responding to the impeachment are similarly limited. Ordinarily, aides would look to Twitter for the President’s first response to being the only president in history to be impeached twice. So, too, would Republican members of Congress fear what might appear on Trump’s feed if they decided to break with him and vote for his impeachment.
But Trump’s account has been permanently suspended – and with it his principal weapon for ensuring GOP loyalty.
The White House said in a statement this week it opposes impeachment, and Trump railed against the proceedings on Tuesday.
“It’s causing tremendous anger and division and pain far greater than most people will ever understand, which is very dangerous for the USA, especially at this very tender time,” he said during his visit to Texas.
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