Chris Christie is still using his 'official' Twitter account. Lawyers say it's a problem

Dustin Racioppi | NorthJersey

Show Caption Hide Caption What will Christie be remembered for most? NorthJersey.com's John McAlpin and Charles Stile pull apart the chapters of Chris Christie's political story to find out what he'll be remembered for the most. (Orig. broadcast live on Facebook, Nov. 15, 2017)

Five months after leaving office and becoming a professional talking head for ABC News, Chris Christie still lists his preferred social media profile as the “official Twitter account of the 55th Governor of New Jersey.”

But there is nothing official about it to New Jersey.

The state says it does not have access to Christie’s Twitter or Facebook accounts. Nor will it say what email address was used to create it or what is currently used for those accounts. And the state has not archived any of Christie's social media posts and messages, which may be government records since he used social media as official channels to promote policies, stream events and make statements.

It's undecided if Christie’s tweets, direct messages and Facebook posts should be considered government records because the state does not have a social media policy for government accounts and no policy on archiving social media material.

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Facebook and Twitter have become essential tools to everyday Americans and politicians alike over the past decade, yet how those platforms and others should be used by public officials has vexed governments across the country. In some states, such as Kentucky, Maryland and Missouri, governors have found themselves in courtroom battles over access, transparency and Constitutional freedoms.

The latest high-profile controversy centers on United Nations Ambassador and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, whose mixing of personal and politics appears to violate department rules, according to Politico. And last month a federal judge sitting in New York ruled that it is unconstitutional for President Donald Trump to block followers based on their political views.

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The National Archives and Records Administration has advised the White House that Trump's tweets are official records that must be preserved under the Presidential Records Act, making his social media posts subject to federal record-keeping. His predecessor, Barack Obama, turned over his Twitter account to the National Archives upon leaving office and switched to a personal account.

In an era where the president makes policy and other executive decisions through tweets, the lack of policy in New Jersey shows just how far behind it is to ensure record-keeping standards match technology.

“This is a failure of the government agency, in this case the state of New Jersey, to recognize that there are public records being created by state officials, in this case the governor, and there’s no protocol on how those records need to be maintained,” said John Paff, an open government advocate who blogs about public records and transparency.

“Somebody dropped the ball,” he added, “and the public is theoretically suffering because they can’t get access to this government record.”

Christie’s social media accounts have generated interest in news stories and casual conversations around Trenton ever since he left office in January and promptly unfollowed on Twitter the statehouse reporters who covered him. After all, Christie was widely considered America’s first social media governor, whose combative encounters regularly went viral and who now endures in his political afterlife in countless Internet memes.

But Christie is not the only one to face questions about his social media use, and he is not the only one from his administration to leave with their account. His lieutenant governor, Kim Guadagno, took her Twitter account with her as well. She set that up as a personal account, she said, and after leaving office changed her profile to read “NJ's 1st Lt. Governor; Partner @connellfoleyllp; Former prosecutor, Sheriff, and proud military mom with 3 sons.”

“I don’t know if we have a policy for that,” she said in an interview. “Certainly it was never reviewed with me.”

Over the last several months The Record and NorthJersey.com sought detailed account information for the Twitter and Facebook accounts of Christie, Guadagno, Gov. Phil Murphy and Lt. Gov. Sheila Oliver, as well as policies concerning social media use and archiving guidelines. Those requests shuttled among five different agencies with few answers.

In response to the requests, the governor’s office’s records custodian, Heather Taylor, said “there is no state employee who has administrative privileges to access Governor Christie or Lieutenant Governor Guadagno’s Twitter or Facebook accounts.”

Taylor also said that as of Christie’s last day in office, Jan. 16, no one had been blocked from Christie’s Twitter account but that “some individuals” were blocked from his Facebook account “due to threats against the governor and/or his family.” Unlike his Twitter account, Christie's Facebook profile is listed as "Governor Chris Christie’s official Facebook Fan Page."

The governor's office turned over much more detailed information on the accounts for Murphy and Oliver, including archives of their social media posts.

Those documents showed that Murphy and Oliver set up their social media accounts with Gmail addresses, not government domains. An administration aide said after this story was posted online that those accounts recently switched to using government email addresses.

Web site for Transition2010 just launched! Check it out here - http://nj.gov/transition2010/ — Governor Christie (@GovChristie) November 17, 2009

Neither Murphy's office nor a representative for Christie returned messages seeking comment.

Christie set up his official account shortly after his election in 2009, according to the Wayback Machine, which archives web pages. He went on to issue thousands of tweets on topics political and prosaic: notifying followers of national media appearances, declaring a state of emergency, taunting the Assembly Speaker over last year's government shutdown or simply sharing what he was listening to after a long day at work.

And he amassed a large following along the way: 957,000 followers as of Tuesday.

Christie was not the only one to use his Twitter account, as staffers would send out messages during public events. That technically means taxpayer resources were used for his account.

It isn't clear what other state resources may have been put into the creation and maintenance of Christie's Twitter and Facebook accounts, but Walter Luers, an attorney and secretary of the New Jersey Foundation for Open Government board of directors, said elected officials should "turn them in" when they leave office.

"If they use the government resources to build up these accounts, that belongs to the state," he said. "The social media accounts built with state resources should not travel when the official leaves."

For Christie specifically, Luers said, "He shouldn’t keep it if it’s official."

Still, Luers is not convinced that Christie's tweets and Facebook messages constitute government records and he doesn't find it "terribly troubling" that Christie is still using the social media accounts he had while in office.

"It’s not clear where the dividing line is between politics and political jockeying and campaigning on the one hand and a public record on the other hand. The truth is it’s probably a huge mix," he said. "Maybe there should be a policy on this."