Former Democratic congressman Alan Grayson was hired — then fired — by the fact-checking website PolitiFact on Thursday.
PolitiFact wrote on Twitter around 12 PM on Thursday that they were adding former Republican congressman David Jolly and Grayson to serve a “reader advocates” for the website.
Screen Shot PolitiFact Twitter (Feb 1, 2018)
Screen Shot Twitter PolitiFact (Feb 1, 2018)
Twitter users quickly began pointing out Grayson’s controversial history, including allegations that he beat his wife and a video of him putting his hands on a reporter.
In 2016, video showed Grayson grabbing a Politico reporter’s shoulders and threatening to have him arrested after the reporter asked him about the allegations of domestic abuse.
Just about three hours after the initial announcement that they were bringing Grayson on board, PolitiFact tweeted that they were revoking the offer. They also deleted their initial tweets about the offer.
“We sought out a Democrat and Republican to critique our work in order to try and improve the trust and credibility in fact-checking and PolitiFact,” the fact-check site wrote. “It has become clear our choice of Alan Grayson did not meet that threshold to many.”
We sought out a Democrat and Republican to critique our work in order to try to improve the trust and credibility in fact-checking and PolitiFact. It has become clear our choice of Alan Grayson did not meet that threshold to many. pic.twitter.com/uJuoHhiObI
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) February 1, 2018
“We called Alan a short while ago and informed him that we would be canceling our agreement for him to write on PolitiFact,” PolitiFact continued. “We remain committed to this experiment, however, and will be seeking out a Democrat to replace Alan.”
We called Alan a short while ago and informed him that we would be canceling our agreement for him to write on PolitiFact. We remain committed to this experiment, however, and will be seeking out a Democrat to replace Alan. If you have a good suggestion, please reach out.
— PolitiFact (@PolitiFact) February 1, 2018