{"id":34884,"date":"2017-06-12T13:56:24","date_gmt":"2017-06-12T20:56:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=34884"},"modified":"2017-06-12T14:11:15","modified_gmt":"2017-06-12T21:11:15","slug":"the-covfefe-act-was-just-introduced-in-congress-to-preserve-trumps-deranged-social-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newscorpse.com\/ncWP\/?p=34884","title":{"rendered":"The ‘COVFEFE Act’ Was Just Introduced in Congress to Preserve Trump’s Deranged Social Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last month Donald Trump took to Twitter to post one of his most coherent messages to date. It was a brief tweet that said only “Despite the negative press covfefe”<\/em> (it was later deleted). Yep, that’s it. And with that he communicated with his devoted disciples who all seemed to know exactly what he was talking about. His press secretary, Sean Spicer, said that the meaning was known “to the President and a small group of people.”<\/em> Spicer declined to reveal the meaning or the people who knew it.<\/p>\n

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Now we have some added clarity of the issue thanks to a Mike Quigley, a congressman from Illinois. The Democratic representative just introduced a new bill that directly addresses the covfefe controversy. Creatively named “The Communications Over Various Feeds Electronically for Engagement”<\/em> (aka the COVFEFE Act<\/a><\/strong>), it doesn’t exactly provide a definition. But it does give guidance on handling Trump’s Twitter blathering. According to Quigley’s House web page:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn order to maintain public trust in government, elected officials must answer for what they do and say; this includes 140-character tweets,\u201d said Rep. Quigley. \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s frequent, unfiltered use of his personal Twitter account as a means of official communication is unprecedented. If the President is going to take to social media to make sudden public policy proclamations, we must ensure that these statements are documented and preserved for future reference. Tweets are powerful, and the President must be held accountable for every post.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The purpose of the COVFEFE Act is to make sure that all presidential communications are preserved for posterity. That’s actually the state of current law. However, at present it is unclear whether social media communications are regarded as official presidential records. This bill will solve that uncertainty by explicitly adding social media to the Presidential Records Act.<\/p>\n

Administration staffers like Kellyanne Conway and Sebastian Gorka have contributed to the ambiguity regarding social media. They have both told reporters to dismiss Trump’s tweets as casual asides. However, those views were directly contradicted by others in the administration. Rep. Quigley notes that “Trump\u2019s tweets frequently make national news and are a topic of everyday conversation.”<\/em> When asked about Trump’s tweets Sean Spicer admitted that they are “considered official statements by the president of the United States.”<\/em> Even the President has made clear that he considers his social media commentaries to be indispensable methods of communicating with the public:<\/p>\n

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The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out.<\/p>\n

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 6, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n