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Melania Trump speech: Department of Justice tweets about tycoon's wife in strange message

The department later said the unlikely message was sent in error

Andrew Buncombe
New York
Tuesday 19 July 2016 16:35 BST
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The US Department of Justice’s official Twitter account is usually a sober place.

It details speeches being made by department officials, such as Attorney General Loretta Lynch, or else provides updates on offenders who have been convicted by federal prosecutors.

Yet on Tuesday morning, in an unlikely blast of both attitude and naked partisanship, the handle tweeted out a message in support of Melania Trump, amid the controversy she is in after delivering an allegedly plagiarised speech.

Tweeting a link to a CNN story that reported the Trump campaign’s denial that Monday night’s speech at the Republican National Convention was copied from one that First Lady Michelle Obama delivered in 2008, the post added: “CNN is the biggest troll of them all.”

Michelle melania speech plagiarized

It also included the shorthand for a somewhat vulgar piece of slang - LMAO - and the hashtag #petty.

There was no immediate explanation on Tuesday from the DoJ as to who was responsible for the message, which was quickly deleted, and whether it was the view of Ms Lynch. More likely, according to speculation on social media, the erroneously tweeted message was the work of unfortunate intern or staff member who meant to post it from their own account.

Indeed, later on Tuesday, the department issued a statement saying the tweet was a mistake.

“A staffer in the public affairs office erroneously used the official Department of Justice Twitter handle to post a tweet that was intended for a personal account,” the department said in a statement to Politico.

“The tweet does not represent the department’s views and was inappropriate for the Department of Justice’s official account, so it was immediately deleted. The staffer’s access to the department’s social media accounts has been revoked.”

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