- William C. Bradford stood down as head of the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy
- It came after CNN revealed a series of posts on his Disqus account
- The comments included obscene remarks about Barack Obama’s mother
- Bradford said he had been hacked and said a federal investigation was ongoing
A Trump appointee whose social media account was used to make inflammatory comments about Barack Obama has quit.
William C. Bradford, who headed the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy, stood down yesterday, claiming he had been hacked.
An account on Disqus which appeared to be linked to Bradford carried posts about the 44th President’s birth certificate, and made obscene remarks about his mother.
William C. Bradford, who headed the Energy Department’s Office of Indian Energy, stood down yesterday, claiming he had been hacked
It followed a report on CNN about the comments. Bradford told the network that he couldn’t comment on ‘an ongoing federal investigation into multiple cyber attacks and Internet crimes committed against me over the past several years, to include email intrusions, hacking, and impostors in social media’.
He had earlier come under fire after The Washington Post reported on a series of posts on his Twitter feed, describing Obama as a Kenyan and saying that internment of Japanese-Americans was necessary.
Bradford later branded the comments ‘inexcusable’.
On Wednesday Sen Ron Wyden, Dem, wrote to the FBI and DOE requesting more information on the claim Bradford had been hacked.
He came under fire in June after a series of tweets about Obama, which he later admitted were ‘inexcusable’