Former veep, media pranked by 2024 White House campaign filing by 'Mike Richard Pence'

Pence has been floating a presidential run, dependent on "prayerful consideration," but has not filed the paperwork.
Mike Pence
By Greg Piper

"Mr Mike Richard Pence" of Anderson, Indiana briefly threw political and media worlds into a tizzy Monday by filing the paperwork for a 2024 presidential run with the Federal Election Commission.

But it wasn't President Trump's vice president Michael Richard Pence, a former Indiana congressman and governor, who filed the papers, according to the ex-veep's former spokesperson Devin O'Malley. 

The unknown prankster fooled media organizations worldwide including Reuters, the Washington Times, Sky News and the Washington Examiner, whose reporter Christian Datoc deleted the tweet linking to Pence's purported filing after O'Malley's rebuttal.

Pence told supporters in mid-November he was giving the possibility of a 2024 presidential run "prayerful consideration," the Examiner reported. But Trump, the only declared GOP candidate so far, previously said it would be "very disloyal" if Pence and other Cabinet members ran against him.