A White House staffer appears to be running a massive pro-Trump X account

Hours after An ICE agent was shot and killed Rene is good In Minneapolis, the Trump administration already was Work on shaping the narrative. The official White House accounts flooded social media Flag burning clips and clashes between local residents and federal immigration agents, leading to protesters—not murder—being framed as the story.

Among the accounts amplifying this message was Johnny Maga, a pro-Trump X account with nearly 300,000 followers. “They’re burning the American flag right now in Minneapolis,” the anonymous account claimed. Share a clip From the White House’s official Rapid Response Brief. “And they really expect you to believe that ICE shot an innocent civilian.”

To his fans, Johnny MAGA seemed like an independent voice, another angry supporter in the MAGA media ecosystem. account regularly Promotes Trump’s real social media posts He goes to bat for the administration, attacking Democrats like… California Governor Gavin Newsom.

But this is not just an ordinary account. It appears that Johnny Maga is actually a White House staffer named Garrett Wade who works in the Trump administration as an aide Rapid response managerhelping to run the same White House account that the anonymous MAGA account is amplifying. A phone number associated with Wade has been linked to Johnny Maga, according to a WIRED review of publicly available records, and the connection was confirmed by a source close to the White House.

Wade and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.

The Johnny MAGA account was created in September 2021, according to his profile

The operator of the Johnny MAGA account did not disclose an official relationship with the White House while operating the Johnny MAGA X account. Multiple media outlets, including Mother Jones, town halland New York Postall linked to posts on Johnny MAGA’s account that appear to be organic reflections of public sentiment toward political issues.

Since Trump took office last year, Johnny MAGA’s account has supported the administration’s priorities like immigration enforcement and allies Such as the turning point of the United States of America. After Trump posted A Racist video generated by artificial intelligence Barack and Michelle Obama were photographed as monkeys earlier this month. Johnny MAGA’s account has been boosted the White House claim That the president did not watch the entire video, and posted it, “The most clear evidence that Trump’s posting of the truth on social media was unintentional is that he would have posted the entire video if he had seen it. It is a masterpiece.”

While the Trump administration has long cultivated a growing corps of conservative creators to spread its messages online, a White House staffer serving as an anonymous MAGA influencer would blur the already blurry line, making it nearly impossible to distinguish between official government messaging and what appears to be organic digital support. Disinformation researchers point out that this lack of disclosure threatens to undermine public trust.

“People have a right to know who is trying to manipulate public opinion, and they have a right to know whether or not they are testing the wily grass of politics,” says Samuel Woolley, a professor at the University of Pittsburgh who studies misinformation and media ethics. “This lack of transparency, the conflicts of interest surrounding this account, and the lack of disclosure are all a breach of public trust.”

There is very little public information online about Wade, but Federal Election Commission records link him to former senior White House communications officials. Donations from 2023 through WinRed made by Garrett Wade of suburban Philadelphia — where Wade graduated high school — listed his employer as a “tech school” in March 2023 and in December of that year as Opinion Architects, a digital consulting group. The donations also indicate that Wade resides in the Bucks County area of ​​Pennsylvania, where he previously lived, according to public records. The phone number linked to Wade and to Johnny MAGA — whose location has been listed in the past as Philadelphia — has also been geolocated in the Bucks County area.