An online gamer who goes by the name of Kacey Montagu has pulled a fast one on the press secretaries office and the White House press corps.
In recent weeks White House press corps have sent questions to Press Secretary Jen Psaki from someone claiming to be a reporter who is unable to get into the briefing room due to COVID protocols.
Since the pandemic only a certain amount of reporters are allowed inside the briefing so questions are forwarded from the WHPC to the secretaries office instead.
Montagu started the hoax late last year by creating a news outlet called, White House News, shortened to WHN.
Montagu started two twitter handles and one was used to bait top White House officials and journalists. Montagu then posed as a member of the White House Correspondents association and communicated regularly with top White House reporters and has had sever exchanges with White House officials.
“I love journalism, and I think the Press Corps is doing a pretty bad job at the moment, so I decided I would ensure some transparency and ask some questions me and some friends wanted the answer to,” Montagu said.
The hoax showed just how inept the press is and how dumb the Biden administration is.
The Politico has been unable to uncover exactly who Kacey Montagu is however were able to reach her by using the WHN email address.
The hoax is remarkable, from Politico:
Acquaintances online suspect much of the biographical information to be untrue. They believe Montagu’s White House moonlighting began as something to boast about in the online global gaming platform called ROBLOX, where users jokingly call themselves “Legos.” Within that platform is a role-playing group called nUSA, where people from across the world engage in a mock U.S. government exercise. At one point, Montagu had adopted the role of Secretary of State but resigned from that job after — as they recalled — ”the [nUSA] President went to war with some U.K. and I thought it was a pretty bad idea!”
There is a level of sophistication to how Montagu operates. The email address associated with the Twitter accounts he or she set up appears to have been used only for establishing those feeds, an associated website, and to contact reporters and the White House. Other than that, there are no digital breadcrumbs.
Montagu set up twitter handles to dupe top reporters and members of the administration. He or she set up @WHscedule in December and in March set up an account named @WHpoolreport. Montagu then used those accounts to post regular information reporters consume, the comings and going of all White House officials.
“I created them as some fun but also to ensure that people know what is going on — they should be able to know what POTUS and V.P. is doing and I think the account following shows people are interested in that,” Montagu told POLITICO via email.
Montagu was so good at posting the information that White House officials began to rely on the accounts to include Michael LaRosa press secretary for Jill Biden and Symone Sanders, a senior advisor and chief spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris.
As the accounts gained attention Montagu used them gain access to the press corps to ask questions.
Montagu even gained access to a COVID-19 response briefing.
From Politico:
A person who goes by the name “pres. arnie vinick,” formerly the president of the nUSA group of which Montagu was a part, sent POLITICO a screenshot from a Covid-19 response Zoom briefing held by the White House with “Kacey Montagu”’s virtual hand raised to ask a question. Vinick said the shot was sent to him by Montagu, and Montagu confirmed that they have covered Covid-19 press briefings, but were not called on to ask a question.
“Whether that is fake or not I don’t know, but I really wasn’t surprised she fooled these people,” said “vinick.” “She’s been bragging about it for awhile.”
“She knew one way or another she was gonna get caught; I don’t think she predicted a Politico article being written on her,” the person, who goes by “zarta,” said in an online message. They expressed confidence that, “if this ha[d] went on, she very well could’ve obtained her own day pass and been able to travel to [D.C.] and into the White House.”
Twitter has since shut down the accounts, you can read the full report here.
