Eric Draper, Courtesy of the George W. Bush Presidential Library/Getty
Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary for President George W. Bush, has copped criticism for announcing he will ending his annual custom of live-tweeting the events of Sept. 11, 2001, on the anniversary after being hired by Saudi-backed LIV. Fleischer was one of few officials to be in close proximity to Bush as the the terror attacks unfolded and for the last 10 years, he has taken to Twitter on Sept. 11 to share details of how the day developed behind the scenes. But this year, Fleischer announced that he will no longer share “my perspective of what I saw standing at President Bush’s side for much of the day.” He wrote: “I have decided that my story has been told and I will not live tweet what took place on 9/11 again.” But some noted another motive for Fleischer’s silence: In June, his PR company, Fleischer Communications, was hired by the Saudi-backed LIV Golf Invitational Series as a “communications consultant.”The Hill journalist Zack Budryk posted in reply: “Cannot get over Ari Fleischer getting a PR job with the Saudis and then announcing that actually his 9/11 play-by-play tweets have run their course.”
