Montagu has launched two real-time Twitter handles, followed by top White House officials and journalists. Montagu has filed requests for the Freedom of Information Act and obtained Psaki’s personal financial disclosure form, along with the announcement of at least one other official, the president’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan.
In communication with confidants, Montagu posed as a member of the White House Correspondents Association, claiming to be a reporter for The Daily Mail, the British tabloid known for its gossipy coverage of celebrities and political figures. Montagu also communicates regularly with top White House reporters and has had a number of conversations with White House officials.
But Montagu never joined WHCA and The Daily Mail. There’s no Kacey Montagu except as a digital imitation of a White House correspondent.
“I like journalism, and I think the press corps is doing pretty badly at the moment, so I decided to ensure transparency and ask questions that I and some friends wanted the answer to,” Montagu said. and asked why they pretend to be White House reporters.
Aside from the motivation, Montagu’s activity is a remarkable illustration of how the online landscape, coupled with the age of pandemic-related virtual work, offers opportunities for the unscrupulous people to infiltrate the best levels of power. What is perhaps more striking is that he or she did it all without raising a lone eyebrow … until Thursday.
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Exactly who the real Kacey Montagu is remains completely unclear. And he or she refused to disclose much personal information.
In talks with U.S. officials and nonprofit journalism and government detection equipment, Montagu said they were an 18-year-old U.S. law student born in the U.S. before moving across the dam with their family at age six. has. In another conversation, reviewed by POLITICO, Montagu said they were studying political science. He or she said that they are not motivated by politics, but that they are socially liberal and conservative on economic issues.
Celebrities online suspect that much of the biographical information is untrue. They believe that the moonlighting of the White House in Montagu started as something to brag about in the online global gaming platform called ROBLOX, where users jokingly call themselves ‘Legos’. Inside the platform is a role-playing group called nUSA, where people from all over the world participate in a mockery of the US government. At one point, Montagu assumed the role of Secretary of State, but resigned from the post after – as they recall – ‘the [nUSA] President was at war with some UK and I thought that was a pretty bad idea! ‘
There is a degree of sophistication in the operation of Montagu. It appears that the email address associated with the Twitter accounts he or she has set up has only been used to set up the feeds, an associated website, and to contact reporters and the White House. In addition, there are no digital breadcrumbs.
A Twitter account named Kacey ‘Lego’ Montagu was busy with a few individuals who noticed Montagu’s involvement in persecutions in the White House. But there is also no identifiable information you can see from it. The background image is of the late Prince Philip and the avatar used is of Trisha Paytas, a YouTube star.
Montagu’s acting as White House reporter goes back at least to December when he or she posted @WHschedule on Twitter. They repeatedly refer to the ‘schedule’ account in email as a primary duty. In March, they started sending tweets from @WHpoolreport. The reports are a rudimentary re-report of two sources of information that reporters regularly use: the president, first lady, vice-president and second lord’s daily schedules and the so-called pool reports, which are sent in real time by a small group of journalists who must follow: around the principals throughout the day and report to the rest of the press corps on their movements and statements.
“I created it as a bit of fun, but also to make sure people know what’s going on – they need to be able to know what POTUS and VP are doing, and I think the next report shows that people are interested in it,” he said. Montagu told POLITICO.
The bills received attention from insiders, who quickly relied on their speed and efficiency. @WHSchedule had more than 1,300 followers, including White House correspondents (some working for POLITICO). The new @WHPoolReport account has amassed more than 600 in a matter of weeks, including some who work in the administration, such as Michael LaRosa, press secretary of Jill Biden and Symone Sanders, a senior adviser and chief spokesman for Vice President Kamala Harris.
As the bills gained traction, Montagu tried his or her hand at proactive reporting on the White House. Montagu inquired at the WHCA to become a pool reporter himself and urged the Biden administration to request a day pass to have a ‘colleague’ personally covered in the White House. Montagu said they never formally requested a pass, although the idea would have been ‘cool’.
Montagu emailed questions to help people for President Joe Biden, First Lady Jill Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris. They emailed the new press people in the White House with congratulations after getting positions, or noticed how cool their roles should be.
A person named “Pres. arnie vinick, ”formerly the president of the nUSA group of which Montagu was a part, POLITICO sent a screenshot from a Covid-19 response Zoom briefing held by the White House with the virtual hand of ‘Kacey Montagu’ to ‘ to ask a question. Vinick said the shot was sent to him by Montagu, and Montagu confirmed that they had discussed Covid-19’s press conferences but did not appeal to them.
“Whether it’s fake or not, I do not know, but I was really not surprised that she fooled these people,” Vinick said. “She’s been bragging about it for a while.”
Another longtime member of the community who has been in contact with Montagu said they suspect they created the account ‘just for the memes’ and never assumed things would go that far. The member said they decided to speak in part to help show how incredibly easy it is for someone with no apparent media evidence or journalistic experience to immerse himself in the highest ranks of the industry and government.
‘She somehow knew she was going to be caught; I do not think she predicted that a Politico article would be written about her, ‘the person, who goes to’ zarta ‘, said in an online message. They expressed confidence that, “if this ha[d] would have been able to get her own day pass and travel to [D.C.] and in the White House. ”
In other screenshots, shared by the nUSA community, Montagu claims that they cheated WHCA by pretending to be a real reporter and at one point said they were on their way to being verified by Twitter.
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Most of Montagu’s efforts focused on trying to get answers from Psaki during the briefing. Montagu regularly sends emails to journalists who serve as the White House pool’s reporter on a particular day with questions they wanted to ask in the information hall. In the one, obtained and verified by POLITICO, Montagu said they could not be “because of social distance regulations” before asking a question to be asked on their behalf.
‘Recently, the White House read the calls and took the name of the people who say’ senior official ‘. Why does the White House not disclose the names of people in the calls, and comment on them so that they can be kept? accountable to the American people? ”
The signature on the email was ‘WH Correspondent’ with the outlet mentioned by WHN.
The reporter of that day did not want to ask Montagu’s question, as did several others who received emails from the account, including at least two staff members at POLITICO. But Montagu, whose email signatures elsewhere called them a ‘political correspondent’ at the fake acronym WHSG, managed to ask reporters at The Plain Dealer and CQ Roll Call, among others, are asking about everything from travel bans on Covid-19, to upcoming ambassadorships, to Biden’s response to Microsoft being hacked.
POLITICO verified the questions through e-mail screenshots and conversations with journalists, press outlets, Montagu online collaborators and administrative officials.
The White House declined to comment.
In some cases, Montagu followed up on polite emails to reporters, thanking them for asking Psaki questions on their behalf. In at least one case, a White House official was attached to Montagu to circle back with more information than they had. This kind of quick attention will not be given to anyone outside the media trying to get information from the White House.
It would also be highly unlikely that this would happen in the days before the Covid, where all 49 seats were occupied, rather than the 14 now filled, so reporters could be socially in the small room. During the pandemic, it became the norm for the pool reporter to ask a question or two to a press corps colleague as a courtesy.
Some White House reporters approached by email from Montagu said the inquiries usually come after they send in their first pool report that day. This report probably indicated Montagu who would be in the information hall. Some of the reporters with duty said they quickly did a thorough investigation before deciding to ask the suggested question and came across a since deactivated LinkedIn profile for Montagu, which holds the position of ‘Chief Political Correspondent’ at WHS and name a place in Washington. , DC The profile photo associated with the bill was British Prime Minister Boris Johnson eating an ice cream cone.
On Thursday, Chris Johnson, of Washington Blade, was the pool reporter, and when it was his turn to ask a question to Psaki, he posed one on behalf of an absent colleague. Like the others, it turns out to be Montagu – a fact that was exposed after the fact Mediaite started inquiring about the origin of the query, which deals with Biden’s relationship with former President Barack Obama and whether the White House will bring back the revelation of the presidential portrait.
Soon other dominoes fell. A Montagu profile page hosted by Google has been removed. Monagu’s old Linkedin profile has also disappeared.
By Friday, the more popular accounts Montagu had set up on Twitter, @WHschedule, had been suspended for imitating the White House color scheme and not disclosing that it had any ties to the U.S. government.
A Twitter spokesperson told POLITICO that it violates the company’s imitation policy.
“I enjoy allowing transparency of the administration – unfortunately WHSchedule has been suspended,” Montagu said in their email, “no idea why!”
Tina Nguyen and Mark Scott contributed to this report.