Big changes reportedly coming to how Trump manages Twitter account

A source inside the White House has revealed President Donald Trump’s future tweets will be reviewed by a team of lawyers prior to the messages being posted publicly.

According to a report published Friday by The Wall Street Journal, a Trump administration aide told reporters a group of lawyers will “vet” the president’s tweets to limit the number of controversial messages posted. The policy change reportedly came after the White House’s communications and legal offices told Trump a careful review of his Twitter messages is an important step toward limiting future embarrassing news stories and scandals.

The White House source told The Wall Street Journal administration staffers wanted to create a system to limit Trump’s Twitter autonomy so that his tweets “don’t go from the president's mind out to the universe."

In late April or early May, White House aides held a Twitter “intervention” to express to Trump the damage some of his unchecked social-media messages have caused.

One of the most embarrassing and damaging tweets was posted on March 4, when Trump said, “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!”

Trump stuck to the accusation for months, but after much scrutiny and calls for the White House to produce evidence, Trump failed to put forward any proof showing Obama administration officials ordered a wiretap of anyone at Trump Tower in the way Trump described, although it is clear some members of Trump’s team had their conversations surveilled while speaking to targets of investigations. It has also been established that some of those members of Trump’s team were “unmasked” by officials in the Obama administration.

Trump has one of the most-followed and most-talked-about Twitter accounts in the world. He has routinely used Twitter to go directly to the public, and he’s said he believes it’s an important part of his messaging. As of Saturday, Trump had 30.7 million followers on Twitter.

Evan Williams, a Twitter co-founder, recently told the New York Times he’s “sorry” if Twitter helped Trump win the election.

“It’s a very bad thing, Twitter’s role in ,” Williams said. “If it’s true that he wouldn’t be president if it weren’t for Twitter, then yeah, I’m sorry.”