Brig. Gen. Kathleen Cook, the Air Force's director of public affairs, said Thursday "we do not have a definitive answer" on who retweeted a message criticizing President Obama's immigration policy from her official Twitter account.
"I realize this response may be unfulfilling to some, but it's the truth," Cook said in a commentary posted on the Air Force's homepage. "That said, as the owner of the account, I accept responsibility for its content."
On the evening of Nov. 21, Cook's official Twitter account -- @USAFPABoss -- retweeted Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who quoted Fox News digital politics editor Chris Stirewalt as saying "The president has decided that the last two years of his term are going to be a disaster." The tweet also included the hashtags #ImmigrationAction and #KellyFile. The next day, blogger and former airman Tony Carr posted a screenshot of the tweet on the Facebook page for his blog, John Q. Public.
In her Thursday commentary, Cook said she was on leave and out of state at the time, caring for her daughter, who had just had surgery. She said she was unaware of the tweet until a staff member called her Nov. 22 to tell her about it. She quickly had the tweet it taken down.
Cook said in a Nov. 24 statement that she did not send the tweet and was not on Twitter at the time. And in the Thursday commentary, she reiterated that the tweet it was sent without her knowledge.
The Air Force said in November that Cook inherited the account last year and did not change the password to the account after inheriting it last year, until the controversy over the retweet erupted. At least seven other people had access to the account. Some public affairs staffers tweeted on Cook's behalf through the official account, though Cook is now the only one who has the new password.
"In the end, what I know to be true is that the account belongs to me and I accept responsibility for it," Cook said at the end of her commentary. "I've applied the lessons above to safeguard both my personal and professional accounts and encourage every airman reading this to do the same."
Cook highlighted several lessons learned from the incident:
- If an official inherits an account from a predecessor, change the password. Officials should also find out who else has or had access to the account and decide if additional administrators are needed to manage the account.
- Strengthen passwords to make sure they are not predictable.
- If an official has other people post on his behalf, consider having those people them initial their tweets.
- Do not store passwords on a shared drive.
- And officials should always lLog out and lock their devices when they are finished with them it.
The commentary came three days after an embarrassing breach in which unknown hackers supporting the Islamic State took control of U.S. Central Command's Twitter and YouTube accounts. For nearly an hour, the hackers posted threatening messages, propaganda videos, and personal information of retired generals.
Stephen Losey is the air warfare reporter for Defense News. He previously covered leadership and personnel issues at Air Force Times, and the Pentagon, special operations and air warfare at Military.com. He has traveled to the Middle East to cover U.S. Air Force operations.
