New White House official deletes thousands of tweets amid backlash: 'Cover his tracks?'
A recently promoted White House official whose resurfaced social media posts ignited backlash over the weekend is now deleting thousands of those tweets, Fox News Digital has learned.
Tyler Cherry, who was promoted earlier this month as an associate communications director at the White House, after more than three years at the Department of Interior working for Secretary Deb Haaland, deleted almost 2,500 posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, according to the Social Blade analytics website.
Cherry deleted 2,496 tweets between Sunday night and Monday morning, according to Social Blade. However, the number is likely much higher because the only visible post on Cherry's personal X account is his response to his resurfaced posts. The former Interior official spoke out Sunday following a social media firestorm about his old posts that attacked police, criticized Republicans, and spewed anti-Israel rhetoric.
Social media users took notice of the deleted tweets, including the popular conservative account LibsofTikTok.
WHITE HOUSE PROMOTES BIDEN OFFICIAL WHO COMPARED POLICE TO SLAVE PATROLS, WANTS TO ABOLISH ICE
"Tyler Cherry just deleted all his tweets," the account posted on X.
"Did #TylerCherry delete all his incriminating tweets, or did the Biden White House do it for him to cover his tracks?" retired diplomat Alberto Miguel Fernandez posted on X.
"Past social media posts from when I was younger do not reflect my current views,"Cherry, who was in his 20s when he made the posts, wrote on X. "Period. I support this Administration's agenda – and will continue my communications work focused on our climate and environmental policies."
Several of Cherry's most controversial posts were highlighted in a Fox News Digital report on Friday, including a 2014 anti-Israel post that went viral and echoes a lot of the rhetoric currently heard on college campuses.
"Cheersing in bars to ending the occupation of Palestine – no shame and f--- your glares #ISupportGaza #FreePalestine," Cherry said on July 25, 2014, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.
"Praying for #Baltimore, but praying even harder for an end to a capitalistic police state motivated by explicit and implicit racial biases," Cherry posted in 2015 amid riots that were sparked following the death of Freddie Gray, a Black man, in police custody in Baltimore.
"Apt (sic.) time to recall that the modern day police system is a direct evolution of slave patrols and lynch mobs," he stated in a separate post months later.
In 2018, Cherry called for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Homeland Security Department agency tasked with preventing cross-border crime and illegal immigration, to be abolished.
In 2014,Cherry posted support for Palestinians on social media during the Gaza War in which Palestinian forces, led by the radical Iran-backed terrorist group Hamas, launched hundreds of rockets into Israel, sparking a forceful Israeli response that involved airstrikes and a ground invasion.
Cherry also has a history of criticizing Republicans on social media, including in 2017 when he said conservatives in the Republican Party were focused on "white grievance politics."
Cherry also frequently criticized photos of specific events on social media for having too many "white people" in attendance, National Review's Nate Hochman reported on X.
White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates told Fox News Digital on Thursday that the White House was "very proud to have Tyler on the team." The White House did not respond to an inquiry on the deleted tweets.