USA TODAY International Edition
Pierre Delecto: Mitt Romney’s alter ego revealed
You may know him as Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah, the 2012 Republican presidential nominee with a fastidious approach to blowing out birthday candles, but according to news media reports, the mild- mannered Mormon also has an alter- ego who likes to live ( slightly more) dangerously on social media.
Mitt Romney, you see, is also the mysterious Twitter user Pierre Delecto. And Pierre Delecto is Mitt Romney.
“C’est moi,” Romney confessed in French when confronted about the secret Twitter profile by Atlantic reporter McKay Coppins on Sunday.
Earlier that day, Coppins published a profile on Romney in which the senator shared the existence of the secret social media profile he uses to follow the political discussion.
“What do they call me, a lurker?” Romney said.
Though he did not divulge the name of the Twitter handle, he let slip that he followed 688 people.
Slate reporter Ashley Feinberg then used that limited data to infer that the Pierre Delecto account was, in fact, Romney.
The account has since been made private, but according to screenshots of his posts taken by reporters, Romney appears to have primarily used the Twitter profile to anonymously defend himself from posts or comments that he felt were unfair.
For example, when Soledad O’Brien shared a story from The Hill about Romney’s questioning whether he would endorse Trump in 2020, O’Brien wrote, “Utter lack of a moral compass.”
“Only Republican to hit Trump on Mueller report, only one to hit Trump on character time and again, so Soledad, you think he’s the one without the moral compass?” tweeted Delecto in response.
Slate also shared some of the posts liked by Romney via the Delecto account. Many of them were posts that were positive about himself.
Using the Delecto cover, Romney also liked a number of tweets that were critical of Trump, such as posts from conservative lawyer and fierce Trump critic George Conway, the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway. Slate said Conway “appears to be a particular favorite” of Delecto’s, including tweets questioning Trump’s fitness for office.
Romney’s office did not respond to USA TODAY’s request for comment on the Pierre Delecto account.