After two years of secretly tweeting inside information about the Obama administration and often insulting comments about the foreign policy community, the man behind the mystery Twitter account was finally unmasked and fired last week.
Jofi Joseph, a director in the non-proliferation section of the National Security Staff at the White House, was identified as the culprit responsible for surreptitiously tweeting under the pseudonym @NatSecWonk.
Since its inception in February 2011, the Twitter feed became infamous among Washington policy circles for posting messages critical of the policies of White House officials whom he worked for and insulting their intellect and appearance. He also criticized several top White House and State Department officers, including former National Security Advisor Tom Donilon, Deputy National Security Advisor Ben Rhodes and Secretary of State John Kerry, just to name a few.
The account has since been deleted, however, the Daily Beast has saved some of his racy tweets.
"I'm a fan of Obama, but his continuing reliance and dependence upon a vacuous cipher like Valerie Jarrett concerns me," he once tweeted.
"Was Huma Abedin wearing beer goggles the night she met Anthony Wiener? Almost as bad a pairing as Samantha Powers and Cass Sunstein ..." he tweeted on another occasion, insulting a top Clinton aide, a former Congressman and two White House senior officials.
Earlier this year, he wrote, "'Has sh---y staff.' #ObamaInThreeWords" and "Loved, LOVED the @NYTimesDowd column eviscerating the Clintons today. @ChelseaClinton seems to be assuming all of her parents' vices ..."
However, it was his tweets about Benghazi that raised the level of concern and intensified the hunt to expose him.
For instance, he wrote, "Look, (Republican Rep. Darrell) Issa is an a--, but he's on to something here with the @HillaryClinton whitewash of accountability for Benghazi."
So who exactly was Jofi Joseph?
For one, we know that the 40-year-old national security official lived a double life, working with NSC officials and State Department higher-ups, while secretly tweet-bombing them. Before joining the Obama administration in 2009, Joseph worked as an aide to Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, where he earned a reputation for his smarts and his sarcasm.
He also worked for Joe Biden, before he became a key member of the White House team negotiating Iran's nuclear weapons program. According to an inside source on Capitol Hill, Joseph was in line for a senior job in the Pentagon. His wife, Carolyn Leddy, is a highly-regarded staffer on the Republican side of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, reports the Daily Beast.
In an e-mail, the senior National Security Council staffer expressed deep regrets for tweeting hundreds of anti-administration messages under @natsecwonk. "It has been a privilege to serve in this Administration and I deeply regret violating the trust and confidence placed in me," he wrote in the e-mail to Politico.
"What started out as an intended parody account of DC culture developed over time into a series of inappropriate and mean-spirited comments. I bear complete responsibility for this affair and I sincerely apologize to everyone I insulted," he continued.
In the course of their investigations, officials also told Joseph they suspected he was responsible for a second anonymous Twitter account "@dchobbyist," which included racier tweets about sexual encounters and escort services in addition to the inner workings of the State Department.
"That was him," a person briefed on the probe told Politico.
Joseph refused to respond to a request for comment on the second account.