Tipsheet

Romney Bashed as 'Total Loser' After Secret Twitter Account Is Discovered

Leah Barkoukis
Leah Barkoukis  |  October 21, 2019 8:30 AM

Republican Sen. Mitt Romney confirmed he has a secret Twitter account, which was opened in 2011, shortly after he announced he was running for president. 

The senator discussed the account in an interview with The Atlantic but did not reveal what his name was at the time. 

After the interview, however, Slate was able to determine it was the locked account of Pierre Delecto, with the handle @qaws9876. 

They manage that tension in different ways: While the president spent a too-online Saturday earlier this month unloading on Twitter—launching #IMPEACHMITTROMNEY into the canon of viral Trump taunts—Romney enjoyed a quiet afternoon picking apples with his grandkids in Utah and refusing to take the bait. When I met him in his office a couple of weeks later, I asked if the Twitter insults bothered him.

“That’s kind of what he does,” Romney said with a shrug, and then got up to retrieve an iPad from his desk. He explained that he uses a secret Twitter account—“What do they call me, a lurker?”—to keep tabs on the political conversation. “I won’t give you the name of it,” he said, but “I’m following 668 people.” Swiping at his tablet, he recited some of the accounts he follows, including journalists, late-night comedians (“What’s his name, the big redhead from Boston?”), and athletes. Trump was not among them. “He tweets so much,” Romney said, comparing the president to one of his nieces who overshares on Instagram. “I love her, but it’s like, Ah, it’s too much.” (After this story was published, Slate identified a Twitter account using the name Pierre Delecto that seemed to match the senator’s description of his lurker account. When I spoke to Romney on the phone Sunday night, his only response was, “C'est moi.”) (The Atlantic)

According to Slate, Romney has only tweeted 10 times and in response to other tweets.