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Press Corps was doing ‘pretty bad job,’ says online gamer who infiltrated White House briefings

“I decided I would ensure some transparency and ask some questions me and some friends wanted the answer to,” said Kacey Montagu.

By Josh Plank, World Israel News

An online gamer known as Kacey Montagu persuaded members of the White House press corps to relay her surprisingly good questions to Press Secretary Jen Psaki at least four times in recent weeks, Politico reported Friday.

Montagu claimed to be a reporter for White House News, a fictional news outlet, and asked reporters to pass along her questions because she couldn’t be at press briefings due to Covid restrictions.

“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 told Politico in an email.

Motagu’s online acquaintances said that they believe her White House moonlighting began as something to boast about in the nUSA group of the online gaming platform ROBLOX, where users play the roles of government officials and jokingly call themselves “Legos.”

Montagu had even set up two political news accounts on Twitter, @WHschedule and @WHpoolreport, which were followed by several actual White House correspondents, Jill Biden’s press secretary, and a senior advisor for Vice President Kamala Harris.

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She successfully asked questions through reporters at The Plain Dealer and CQ Roll Call, among others, asking about Covid-19 travel bans, upcoming ambassadorships, and Biden’s reaction to Microsoft being hacked.

“I often have the unique opportunity of asking Press Sec. Jen Psaki questions at the White House Press Briefing – if you have questions you want me to ask let me know,” Montagu tweeted on March 4.

https://twitter.com/SecMontagu/status/1367395302857129986

Everything seemed to be going smoothly until Thursday when Montagu asked a question that was perhaps a bit too intriguing, prompting Mediaite to investigate its source.

A reporter from Washington Blade told Psaki that he had a question from “one of my colleagues who can’t be here because of Covid restrictions.”

“How involved is former President Obama and First Lady Obama in the Biden-Harris administration?” the reporter asked.

Psaki said that Biden and Obama “remain close friends, and they talk regularly about a range of issues, from policy issues, to bouncing ideas off of each other, to their families. So they are in close touch, but we just don’t read out those specific calls; we keep them private.”

A CBS News correspondent followed up later in the press conference, asking what Psaki meant by “regularly.”

“I’m not going to define it more, other than to say that they engage not just about fre- — important moments in our country, but also about their own families. They have a connection on a personal level, so they discuss a range of issues when they connect,” Psaki said.

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Mediate reported on Thursday that the exchange was “started by fictional reporter made of Lego.”

Montagu then issued a tongue-in-cheek statement on Twitter calling the report “very rude.”