Chris Cillizza, a political analyst for CNN, deleted a tweet he sent out Tuesday that included an image appearing to show President Trump in crosshairs.

In a separate tweet, Cillizza said the graphic was unintended and the result of a computer program he and his team used.

"I’ve deleted a GIF about President Trump," he wrote. "We use @GifGrabber to make our GIFs and it defaults to the image below as a first frame. To clear up any unintended confusion, I’ve removed the tweet."

A GIF is a type of digital graphic that sometimes show motion in the image.

Cillizza sent the initial tweet Tuesday morning using a photo of Trump, who spoke that day at the National Peace Officers’ Memorial Service in Washington.

"Donald Trump, pointing to heavens to commemorate police officers killed in the line of duty," Cillizza wrote in the since-deleted post.



I’ve deleted a GIF about President Trump. We use @GifGrabber to make our GIFs and it defaults to the image below as a first frame. To clear up any unintended confusion, I’ve removed the tweet. pic.twitter.com/x6PCKoiW16 — Chris Cillizza (@CillizzaCNN) May 15, 2018

Mike Cernovich, an online provocateur and Trump supporter, saved an image of Cillizza's tweet and called it "an assassination threat on our President!"

Images of crosshairs have drawn controversy in politics in the past. A political action committee supporting Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential candidate, published a U.S. congressional district map with targets, which critics said might inspire gun violence.

