Fake White House reporter manages to ask four questions to Jen Psaki in recent press briefing

A Twitter and Roblox user who posed as a White House correspondent managed to ask four questions to Press Secretary Jen Psaki in recent Biden administration briefings.

Kacey Montagu has been identified as a White House correspondent since last year, with a made up outlet called White House News, or WHN for short, and was found to not be an actual reporter on the 8th. Montagu has claimed to be a reporter for The Daily Mail and posed as a member of the White House Correspondents Association. They also communicate regularly with top White House reporters and have talked to White House officials. Montagu has never actually joined the WHCA or The Daily Mail though. “I love journalism, and I think the Press Corps is doing a pretty bad job at the moment, so I decided I would ensure some transparency and ask some questions me and some friends wanted the answer to,” Montagu said, when reached by email and asked why they were posing as a White House reporter.

Montagu started two real-life Twitter handles which are followed by a couple of top White House officials and journalists called @WHschedule and @WHpoolreport. They have also filed Freedom of Information Act requests, obtained Psaki’s and national security adviser, Jake Sullivan’s personal financial disclosure. Who the real Kacey Montagu is still unknown, and they have refused to reveal much personal information. According to U.S. officials and nonprofit journalism outlets, Montagu said they were an 18-year-old law student from the United Kingdom who was born in the U.S. In another conversation, reviewed by Politico, they were studying political science, and are politically socially liberal and fiscally conservative. They are also involved in a Roblox group called nUSA, which is a mock U.S. government simulator. Their two Twitter accounts regularly post about the president, the vice president, and other White House officials, “I created them as some fun but also to ensure that people know what is going on — they should be able to know what POTUS and V.P. is doing and I think the account following shows people are interested in that,” Montagu told POLITICO.

In an email obtained by Politico, Montagu said that they could not be present to the press conferences “due to social distancing regulations,” before asking that someone asks a question on their behalf. The signature on the email was “WH Correspondent” with the outlet listed as WHN. Another of Montagu’s signatures also called them a “political correspondent,” with the acronym WHSG, which was successful in giving questions to the reporters at The Plain Dealer and CQ Roll Call. They asked about COVID-19 travel bans, coming ambassadorships, and President Biden’s reaction to the hacking of Microsoft. Montagu sent polite thank you emails to the reporters for asking the questions she gave. The White House declined to comment on any of this.