Debate commission backs Steve Scully amid Twitter controversy
C-SPAN host accused of anti-Trump bias; 'Fox News Sunday' host Chris Wallace reacts on 'Bill Hemmer Reports'
C-SPAN host Steve Scully has been hit with a tidal wave of skepticism over his claim that a tweet from his account reaching out to former White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci was the result of a hack.
President Trump sounded off against the selected presidential debate moderator after the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) officially canceled the second debate.
".@SteveScully, the Never Trumper next debate moderator, got caught cold. Pulled out the old, 'I’ve been hacked', line. That never works. His bosses are furious at him as he’s lost all credibility!" Trump exclaimed.
According to a statement from C-SPAN, Scully "did not originate the tweet" in question. The statement added that the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD) was investigating the incident "with the help of authorities."
CPD later stated that "it had reported the apparent hack to the FBI and Twitter" as part of its investigation.
A spokesperson for Twitter told Fox News "We've no comment" when asked to confirm whether or not Scully's account was hacked.
STEVE SCULLY'S TWITTER ACCOUNT DELETED AMID SCRUTINY OF TWEET TO ANTHONY SCARAMUCCI
Scully, who has not yet publicly addressed the controversy himself and could not be reached for comment, has a history of blaming "hackers" for posts made on his Twitter account, dating back to 2012 and 2013.
The Scully Saga has had critics howling.
"Hey C-SPAN, were the hackers screaming 'This is MAGA country!' while they were hacking his account???" asked Donald Trump Jr., alluding to the debunked hate crime reported by actor Jussie Smollett in 2019.
"Not buying it," political scientist Ian Bremmer tweeted. "Steve Scully the luckiest guy out there that there’s no debate, since otherwise they’d need to pull him."
"This is not going to go well," journalist Yashar Ali predicted. "If he was indeed hacked, it should be very easy to prove."
Many critics invoked the 2018 controversy surrounding MSNBC host Joy Reid, who alleged that her now-defunct blog was retroactively hacked after initially apologizing for the homophobic rhetoric found on the site.
"They should include Joy Reid in this investigation. Nothing is a substitute for personal experience. She’ll get to the bottom of this," The Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald quipped.
STEVE SCULLY HAS A HISTORY OF BLAMING 'HACKERS' FOR POSTS MADE ON HIS TWITTER ACCOUNT
"I can’t wait for the inept and decrepit Debate Commission to hire MSNBC’s Joy Reid to oversee its 'hacking' investigation," The Federalist co-founder Sean Davis similarly joked.
"Steve Scully employs the Joy Reid Defense for his very particular hackers. They took over his account only for one Tweet and he left it up for hours and hours. No one believes this," radio host Dana Loesch wrote.
"I thought Scully’s tweet wasn’t a great look, but not that big of a deal. But going with the Joy Reid excuse makes the whole thing look absurd. Why bother?" podcast host Matt Taibbi asked.
The CPD had selected Scully to moderate the second presidential debate between President Trump and Joe Biden scheduled for Oct. 15. That debate was canceled Friday night after Trump pulled out following the CPD's announcement that the event would be virtual. Biden subsequently withdrew from the debate and has since scheduled an ABC News town hall for the night that the debate was supposed to take place.
Frank Fahrenkopf, a co-chairman of the commission, first made the hacking claim to Fox News Radio's "The Brian Kilmeade Show" Friday morning.
"Steve is a man of great integrity, okay?" Fahrenkopf said. "I don't know this question about whether he tweeted something out or not, I do know, and you'll probably pick up on it in a minute, that he was hacked ... Apparently, there's something now that's been on television and the radio saying that he talked to Scaramucci ... He was hacked. It didn't happen."
Scully's initial tweet caused confusion and fury among critics, with many concluding the moderator meant to send his message to Scaramucci privately.
Scaramucci responded by telling Scully: "Ignore. He is having a hard enough time. Some more bad stuff about to go down."
Scaramucci told Kilmeade on Friday that he thought Scully's tweet was real, prompting his own response Thursday night. He also tweeted later Friday that he has taken Scully's hacking claim "at his word," adding, "Let's not cancel anymore [sic] people from our culture for absolutely something like this. It’s insignificant. He is an objective journalist."
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Scully's credibility as an unbiased debate moderator was initially questioned after it became known that he previously worked as an intern for then-Sen. Biden and served as a staffer for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass.
During the 2016 campaign, Scully shared a New York Times op-ed headlined, "No, Not Trump, Not Ever."