Tweets about Kobe Bryant get Washington Post reporter suspended for ‘poor judgment’

The Washington Post suspended a political reporter Sunday who tweeted about rape allegations against Kobe Bryant hours after the former basketball player’s death.

Bryant was accused of rape in 2003 by a 19-year-old employee at a Colorado hotel. The case was dropped and Bryant later admitted to cheating on his wife, Vanessa Bryant.

The tweets from Felicia Sonmez “displayed poor judgment that undermined the work of her colleagues,” the Washington Post said in a statement to Fox News.

After Bryant, his 13-year-old daughter and seven others were killed in a helicopter crash in southern California Sunday, Sonmez tweeted a 2016 story by the Daily Beast about the allegations.

The tweet led to Sonmez being “ratio’d” and she later deleted the thread, which included her commenting about the amount of messages she received. She did not write the Daily Beast story she tweeted.

“Well, THAT was eye-opening,” she wrote in the tweets screen-grabbed by journalist Matthew Keys. ”To the 10,000 people (literally) who have commented and emailed me with abuse and death threats, please take a moment and read the story — which was written 3+ years ago and not by me.

“Any public figure is worth remembering in their totality even if that public figure is beloved and that totality unsettling. That folks are responding with rage & threats toward me (someone who didn’t even write the piece but found it well-reported) speaks volumes about the pressure people come under to stay silent in these cases.”

Sonmez also tweeted a screenshot of one of her emails, which was filled with obscenities. She has not responded publicly to her suspension.

Donald Trump Jr. was among the thousands of Twitter users who responded to Sonmez’s tweets. Many thought Sonmez bringing up the allegations was too soon after Bryant’s death.

“You Washington Post reporters really can’t help yourselves, can you?” the son of the president said.

Sonmez was placed on “administrative leave” and the Post will review the tweets to determine if Sonmez violated the newspaper’s social media policy, the Post’s managing editor told The Daily Mail.

Sonmez is a 2005 graduate of Harvard University, according to her Washington Post biography. She is a national political reporter for the worldwide outlet covering breaking news from the White House, Congress and the campaign trail, her bio states.