On June 23, Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz, who is currently under investigation by FBI for his alleged connection to a sex trafficking ring, posted a message on Twitter calling for the FBI to be defunded:
While many people encountered supposed screenshots of this message on social media, this message didn't appear to be on Gaetz' timeline, which led to some confusion over whether or not the congressman had truly called for the FBI to be defunded.
This is a genuine tweet from Gaetz. This message doesn't appear on the congressman's timeline because he deleted it shortly after posting.
There are a number of organizations that track and archive the messages posted and deleted by politicians. Politiwoops, a ProPublica Project, managed to get a record of this since-deleted message:
A spokesman for Gaetz also confirmed to Vice that this "jocular" message had been deleted and emphasized that Gaetz, who provides oversight over the FBI via the House Judiciary Committee, "treats his interactions with the FBI" with the utmost seriousness.