Two days after Donald Trump praised him as an effective campaign surrogate, Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller set off a political firestorm Tuesday when his Twitter account posted a message referring to Hillary Clinton with a misogynist vulgarity.
The tweet was quickly deleted, and Miller apologized, saying an unidentified campaign staffer mistakenly sent the offensive message.
But in the frantic moments after the tweet appeared Tuesday afternoon, Miller spokesman Todd Smith initially said it had been sent by hackers. He later backtracked, saying he had assumed hackers were involved because he had no other explanation at the time.
The post, which reported the results of a Pennsylvania poll, substituted Clinton’s name with a four-letter vulgar term for the female anatomy that starts with the letter C.
“The campaign was retweeting information on Twitter today and inadvertently retweeted a tweet that they were not aware contained a derogatory term,” Smith said. “Commissioner Miller finds the term vulgar and offensive and apologizes to anyone who may have seen it.”
The post, however, wasn’t a retweet but appears to have been partially copied from a tweet by the controversial pro-Trump Twitter user @TheRickyVaughn. Vaughn, a hero of the racist “alt-right” movement, regularly uses profanity and racial epithets while propagating conspiracy theories. Miller follows his account.
Miller, a former state representative from Stephenville, sits on Trump’s agriculture advisory committee and promotes the Republican nominee in media appearances and campaign events. At rallies on Sunday, Trump told crowds that Miller was a “great guy.”
Miller has a history of controversial posts on social media and has been criticized for Facebook posts referring to Syrian refugees as rattlesnakes and for suggesting that the U.S. use nuclear weapons on “the Muslim world.”
As in Tuesday’s fracas, Miller blamed the nuclear post on an unnamed staffer.
Last week, however, Miller bragged on Twitter that he authors his own posts, writing: “#CrookedHillary needs a dozen people to check her tweets. My thoughts are my own.”
The blowup over Miller’s tweet came several hours after the Democratic presidential nominee, speaking at a campaign rally in Florida, repeatedly focused attention on allegations surrounding Trump’s treatment of women, particularly name-calling.
“When I think about what we now know about Donald Trump, and what he’s been doing for 30 years, he sure has spent a lot of time demeaning, degrading, insulting and assaulting women,” Clinton said.
Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, condemned the term used on Miller’s Twitter account. “The language is reprehensible and is an embarrassment. No true Texas gentleman would ever talk this way,” Abbott said in a statement.
The profane tweet followed a series of strange posts from Miller’s account about the presidential election in which he made mysterious references to federal prosecutors in New York and claimed to have insider knowledge on the “sexting” case involving disgraced former U.S. Rep. Anthony Wiener of New York, the estranged husband of a top Clinton aide.
In one, he showed a picture purporting to show Russian President Vladimir Putin in a Trump-brand necktie and wrote, “Putin has great taste!”
Miller was the subject of a recent criminal investigation by the Texas Rangers over two out-of-state trips he billed to the state and his campaign but allegedly planned for personal purposes. In a trip to Oklahoma, Miller received “the Jesus shot,” an unusual injection that purports to relieve pain for life. Travis County prosecutors declined to prosecute in September, saying they wouldn’t be able to prove why he planned the trips.
About a dozen Texas Democratic elected and party officials are holding a press conference Wednesday morning to denounce Miller.
“While Sid Miller’s disgusting tweet is now deleted, the hate towards women and Texas’ diverse new majority in the Republican Party persists,” state party Executive Director Crystal Perkins said. “Commissioner, you’re an embarrassment to Texas families and our great state. We wish you had a shred of dignity left. No apology is necessary, we all know it would not be sincere anyways. I’ll pray for you.”
About the Author
