Karoline Leavitt, President-elect Donald Trump’s incoming White House press secretary, deleted two social media posts she shared after the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol — including a retweet praising then-Vice President Mike Pence for certifying the 2020 election.
The post included a video of Pence calling the attack “a dark day in the history of the United States Capitol” as he presided over the certification of the results hours after the riot. Trump to this day criticizes Pence for certifying the results of the 2020 election, falsely claiming it was stolen due to rampant voter fraud.
In another post praising the actions of a Capitol Hill police officer who lured rioters away from lawmakers, Leavitt wrote simply, “A hero.”
Leavitt, who at the time was 23 and had recently departed Trump’s White House Press Office, had just accepted a job working for New York Rep. Elise Stefanik. Leavitt then ran unsuccessfully for a New Hampshire congressional seat in 2022, positioning herself as a staunch election denier.
“I’m the only candidate in this race to say that President Trump won in 2020, and I will work my hardest every single day to make sure we get to the bottom of it,” Leavitt said during a September 2021 interview with OANN, which she posted on her X account.
In another interview in October of that year, Leavitt again denied that Joe Biden had won the 2020 election legitimately.
