Mystery as YouTube creator’s finance livestream appears on White House website

By MICHELLE L. PRICE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The livestream of a YouTube content creator talking about investments mysteriously appeared to take over a White House website, raising questions about whether the site was hacked.

The livestream appeared for at least eight minutes late Thursday on whitehouse.gov/live, where the White House usually streams live video of the president speaking.

It’s unclear if the website was breached or the video was linked accidentally by someone in the government. The White House said in a statement that it was “aware and looking into what happened.”

The video that appeared on the government-run website featured some of a more than two-hour livestream from Matt Farley, who posts as @RealMattMoney, as he answered financial questions.

Farley said in an email to The Associated Press on Friday that he had no idea what happened.

“If I had known my stream was going to go super public like that I would be dressed a bit nicer and had a few more pointed topics! And it likely wouldn’t have been about personal finance,” Farley wrote.

President Donald Trump’s administration and campaign have had a series of digital security breaches and challenges over the last year.

In May, government officials began investigating after elected officials, business executives and other prominent figures received text messages and phone calls from someone impersonating Susie Wiles, the Republican president’s chief of staff.

Last year, Iran hacked into Trump’s campaign. Sensitive internal documents were stolen and distributed, including a dossier on Vice President JD Vance, created before he was selected as Trump’s running mate.

Associated Press writer Bill Barrow contributed to this report from Atlanta.