DOVER, Del. (WBOC)- Delaware Gov. Jack Markell's office is apologizing for a tweet sent out Thursday morning that included a link to an suggestive photo.The governor was at an event in Wilmington to promote a new education initiative for disadvantaged students.
His Twitter account posted around 10:20: "At Warner E.S. in #WilmDE to announce new initiative to support many of #netDE's most disadvantaged students."
The tweet then had a link, which, when clicked, went to a photo of a woman wearing what appears to be an outfit that includes leather straps. The time stamp on the photo dates it to December 2010.
Markell's Twitter account deleted the original tweet within half an hour. It reposted the tweet with a photo from the Wilmington event.
Then the following tweet was sent out: "An inappropriate photo was inadvertantly (sic) sent out earlier. We are looking into how this occurred but apologize to anyone who was offended."
The governor's office sent out a full statement just after 12 PM: "During this morning's event, a tweet was composed with a link to what was supposed to be a picture that had just been uploaded to the internet of the Governor's education announcement. While the tweet was being edited, the auto-generated link for the picture was inadvertently altered. As a result, the picture linked to the tweet was a random, unrelated, and inappropriate picture that has been on the internet since 2010, and not the just-uploaded picture of the event. The tweet was deleted and we apologize for the error."
The statement went on to say, "The lessons here are not to compose tweets too quickly and there is a lot of odd stuff on the internet. We just wish the accidental link had been a cat video."
Later Thursday afternoon, the Twitter account connected to the original photo tweeted: "Regarding an image tweeted of me today, it was a harmless selfie/candid from a photoshoot (sic) years ago. I believe it was an honest accident."
Followed by: "I don't deserve to have my integrity or that of anyone I know questioned because of a stranger's error."