Doug Mastriano, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, sounded the alarm about “fake news” over an Inquirer story Monday about his disappearing Facebook videos, claiming they were removed due to a “default Facebook setting” that automatically deletes videos after 30 days.
His campaign did not address why the last video cited in the story — recorded in late June — had already disappeared within about a week, or why many videos older than 30 days were no has been deleted.
Jenna Ellis, a legal adviser to Mastriano and a former lawyer for Donald Trump who was involved in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, tweeted a statement on Monday attributed to an unnamed spokesman for Mastriano’s campaign.
“The biased mainstream media is trying to manufacture a scandal, but they haven’t done their homework,” the statement said.
» READ MORE: Doug Mastriano deletes his Facebook videos as he runs for Pennsylvania governor
The Mastriano campaign did not respond to a request for comment before the Inquirer’s story was published on Monday. Nor did it answer the New York Times when it later asked similar questions about why some videos remained and others disappeared.
The Inquirer reported Monday that at least 14 videos have disappeared from the Mastriano campaign Facebook page over the past three months. In them, he claims global warming is based on “popular science,” theorizes that Republicans who don’t support it secretly “despise veterans,” and reiterates his position that “life begins at conception.”
In the past, Mastriano has deleted tweets promoting the Qanon conspiracy theory and other potentially problematic content. His Senate website was also taken down by a plan he proposed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to lift medical privacy restrictions so the government could release the names and locations of infected people.
After the article was published Monday, Mastriano was criticized by Josh Shapiro, the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, and other Democrats, who accused him of trying to soften his position for the general election after winning a tight GOP primary in May.
“Doug Mastriano spends every day spreading conspiracy theories and reminding voters that his top priority is banning abortion without exception,” Manuel Bonder, a spokesman for Shapiro’s campaign, told the New York Times. “No amount of clicking the delete button can change the fact that Mastriano is the most extreme and dangerous candidate in Pennsylvania history.”
The Mastriano campaign did not respond Tuesday to a request for comment.
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