C-SPAN Suspends Steve Scully For Lying About Twitter Hack

C-SPAN has suspended Steve Scully indefinitely for falsely claiming his Twitter account was hacked after he posted a message to Anthony Scaramucci, a former Trump aide turned critic. Scully was slated to moderate the now-canceled second presidential debate.

After Trump referred to Scully as a “Never Trumper,” Scully sought a defense strategy from Scaramucci. The problem is that he did it publicly by mistake.

“@Scaramucci should I respond to Trump,” Scully tweeted. Once the tweet drew pushback, Scully alleged his account had been hacked.

“I was hacked” is the frequent go-to excuse for those whose tweets put them in a bad light. Sometimes the excuse works, but more often it leads to increased public skepticism and an embarrassing retraction. So it went for Scully:

“For several weeks, I was subjected to relentless criticism on social media and in conservative news outlets regarding my role as moderator for the second presidential debate, including attacks aimed directly at my family,” Scully spoke on the suspension.

“This culminated on Thursday, October 8th when I heard President Trump go on national television twice and falsely attack me by name. Out of frustration, I sent a brief tweet addressed to Anthony Scaramucci. The next morning when I saw that this tweet had created a controversy, I falsely claimed that my Twitter account had been hacked.”

Scully, 60, doesn’t have a top-level Twitter game. He likely intended to send the question to Scaramucci as a direct message, not a public tweet. Even if he didn’t intend to send a DM, he should’ve lied and said he did. That’s a much more believable lie than claiming some hacker got him.

It appears C-SPAN isn’t messing around. They immediately suspended Scully. MSNBC, on the other hand, gave Joy Reid a TV show after she used the same bogus excuse when the public found homophobic posts on her blog.

Not everyone is taking Scully’s suspension to heart. Some, you could say, approve:

I was right again! Steve Scully just admitted he was lying about his Twitter being hacked. The Debate was Rigged! He was suspended from @cspan indefinitely. The Trump Campaign was not treated fairly by the “Commission”. Did I show good instincts in being the first to know?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 15, 2020