The congressional campaign manager who confessed to spreading falsehoods on Twitter during Hurricane Sandy has resigned from Christopher Wright's New York City congressional campaign.
Shashank Tripathi, under the guise of his Twitter handle @ComfortablySmug, sent out several pieces of misinformation during the worst of the storm Monday.
He is being blamed for spreading the now-widely debunked rumor that the New York Stock Exchange trading floor had been flooded with 3 feet of standing water. The rumor was eventually picked up by CNN and New York Magazine until NYSE officials shot it down.
In a message on his Twitter account late Tuesday, Tripathi apologized and offered his resignation on Wright's House campaign for the 12 th congressional district.
Tripathi was first outed by BuzzFeed.
"I wish to offer the people of New York a sincere, humble and unconditional apology," Tripathi wrote. "During a natural disaster that threatened the entire city, I made a series of irresponsible and inaccurate tweets."
Other rumors included a false report that power would be shut down in all of Manhattan and that the New York subway would be closed for the entire week.
Tripathi has written for a finance blog for the Stone Street Advisors hedge fund under the same pseudonym, "ComfortablySmug."
Tripathi has been paid thousands of dollars as a consultant to the Wright campaign, according to BuzzFeed.
Wright's campaign said in a statement that Tripathi's resignation was accepted and the chief of staff, Nick Mackey, will replace him as campaign manager. LINK
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