Hire at U.S. Attorney’s office loses job over old tweets

A former aide to a Republican Rhode Island gubernatorial candidate who resigned over past racist and sexist tweets has lost a job with the Massachusetts U.S. Attorney’s Office after those posts again came to light.

Andrew Augustus, who quit in 2018 as the press secretary for the GOP candidate for governor Allan Fung, had recently started a new job as a public affairs specialist with the local U.S. Attorney’s Office based in Boston.

Augustus was “hired and vetted by a contract agency to work at the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins Office said in a statement on Wednesday.

“Information recently came to light about this individual that had never been disclosed to our Office,” added the spokesperson, Christina Sterling.

“We took immediate steps to notify the contracting agency about the allegations and to better understand the situation,” she said. “As a result, this individual no longer works at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

Augustus used to be the communications adviser for Fung who was Cranston’s mayor and who in 2018 was running for governor of Rhode Island.

Ahead of the election, the GOP aide’s past tweets as a college student surfaced, leading to his resignation.

Those tweets included, “new conspiracy theory the white folk set up obama to be elected after bush so he would fail so america would never vote a black man in again.”

He also tweeted in the past, “Black people + ice skates = hilarity.”

Another of his tweets said, “Lucky to be where I am in life, I have the balls to say what others are thinking I am going to get a tattoo on my chest saying No Fat Chicks.”

Back in 2018 when the posts came to light, Augustus tweeted, “I deeply regret the tweets I made in college. They are not reflective of who I am and I am wholeheartedly sorry to anyone they may have offended. Dialogue like that is not appropriate in any type of environment and should never be tolerated. I have resigned from my position.”

His first day with the U.S. Attorney’s Office was on Feb. 13, when he tweeted about buying a suit “to ensure I am looking my best.”

One week into the job, he tweeted a photo of the Moakley U.S. Courthouse and wrote, “First week of new job is in the books, great experience with a great team.”

Augustus declined to comment to the Herald on Wednesday.