Jofi Joseph, a director on the White House national security staff and key member of its Iran team, has been fired after being revealed as the man behind a Twitter account that has been insultingly critical of the Administration (and some Republicans) over the last few years. Under the name “natsecwonk,” he anonymously called Valerie Jarrett a “vacuous cipher,” wondered when someone would get rid of Sarah Palin and her “white trash family,” and asked “Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Wiener?” Apparently reporters have been following this feed since 2011, as he dished up all kinds of smack about his colleagues. I cannot tell from the news coverage whether he was disclosing classified or confidential information or just snarking.
He is also thought to be the person behind a second Twitter account that went on about sexual encounters, escort services, and the State Department.
The White House has been investigating for months, parsing through a couple of thousand tweets and matching them up with his travel and shopping. WH lawyers ordered him off the premises last week; he has now lost his job, his security clearance, and presumably much of his bright future. His wife is a Republican staffer on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, and I can imagine that it was an awkward conversation when she asked why he was home early that day.
He has every right to mouth off. His employer has every right to fire him. Unless this was a whoosh, ‘cause my first instinct when I read this was, "you shittin’ me?"
The analysis when the government is the employer is a little different than when a private entity is the employer.
But in this case, the conduct is clearly sufficient for the government, in it’s role as employer, to fire him. I just write to make clear that this does not mean the government’s options for firing an employee for expressing personal opinions are identical to a private employer’s – they are not.
For this bozo, though, he’s legitimately unemployed.
Why - that they should be very careful and sure of their facts before they move?
Or that they should expend effort tracing and matching the author of a highly insulting twitter feed that very obviously worked where he did.
And count me amongst those that call it a justified and correct firing. Normally I’m pretty defensive of the separation between work and private lives - but if you’re insulting your colleagues, then your not much use to anybody.
Not to mention - somebody that works in a sensitive role, and then posts sensitive (if not security related) information is too much of a risk to ignore
