Hatch Act
prolly neglected, a minor aspect of authoritarism?
see thom 3 10 25
RNC from WF, AF1 as backdrop at rallies
The Office of Special Counsel is an investigative and prosecutorial office that works to protect government employees and whistleblowers from retaliation for reporting wrongdoing. It’s also responsible for enforcing the Hatch Act, which restricts the partisan political activities of government workers.
In May, Trump described Ingrassia in a social media post as a “highly respected attorney, writer and Constitutional Scholar.”
Trump's cronies are gaslighting America with a new bald-faced lie
Thom Hartmann
October 16, 2025
Airport managers need to wake up fast. With only a handful of exceptions, people running airports across America are risking serious fines and being barred from government work for up to five years by broadcasting political messaging on behalf of DHS Secretary Kristi Noem.
Federal law — the Hatch Act — makes it a crime, punishable by fines and loss of current and future employment, to use government facilities or taxpayer money for partisan political purposes. Yet Noem, who has earned her national reputation as a puppy-killer and by cosplaying “tough cop” with her alleged boyfriend (they’re both married to other people), has pushed out a video to airports across the country blaming Democrats for the current shutdown.
This isn’t just a violation of federal law; it’s also a bald-faced lie.
Republicans today control the House, the Senate, the White House, and the Supreme Court. If Senate Majority Leader John Thune wanted to end the shutdown, he could do so this afternoon.
All it would take is the same maneuver Republicans have used repeatedly: a Senate rules change allowing passage of their Continuing Resolution to keep the government open, using only 50 votes plus the Vice President.
We’ve seen it before. Betsy DeVos only became Secretary of Education because Mike Pence broke a 50–50 tie in the Senate. Jeff Sessions squeaked through 52–47 as Attorney General. Rex Tillerson and Tom Price were confirmed with slim margins. And when it came to the Supreme Court, Mitch McConnell killed the filibuster to ram through Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett.
Democrats, by contrast, failed when they tried to change the rules to pass the For the People Act and John Lewis Voting Rights acts. Kyrsten Sinema and Joe Manchin sided with Republicans to preserve the filibuster, betraying the public interest.
So let’s be clear: this shutdown is not a matter of Senate procedure. Republicans have the power to end it today. They’re choosing not to because they want to strip health care from millions while protecting their $4 trillion tax cut for billionaires.
The 1939 Hatch Act, upheld by the Supreme Court in CSC v. Letter Carriers, outlaws the practice of federal officials converting government facilities into campaign machines. Its penalties are real: removal from service, debarment, suspensions, reprimands, and fines.
Some airport managers understand this, which is why several are refusing to air Noem’s message.
As of today, at least seven airports have declined to run the video at TSA checkpoints, citing policies and laws that prohibit political messaging in publicly funded facilities. Portland International Airport management informed the local ABC News affiliate:
“We believe the Hatch Act clearly prohibits using public assets for political purposes and messaging.”}:
The Washington Post reports that Buffalo, Charlotte, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Seattle, and Portland have all also said no, with at least two explicitly pointing to the Hatch Act as the reason.
By distributing this video, Noem has implicated not just herself but also airport managers nationwide, most of whom are now breaking federal law by broadcasting it. They face personal liability, including fines and disbarment from government work.
That they’ve gone along with Noem reflects how normalized lawbreaking has become in today’s Republican politics led by a 34-times-convicted felon and alleged rapist.
The lie about the shutdown itself compounds the crime. Citizens in a democracy must be able to trust their government to tell the truth about who is responsible for policy decisions and why they’re done. When those in power use public money to gaslight the public, accountability collapses. That is exactly why the Hatch Act exists.
There is precedent for enforcement of the Act even at the highest levels. The Office of Special Counsel recommended Kellyanne Conway be fired for repeated Hatch Act violations. Trump ignored it. He also ignored the law when his administration used the White House for the Republican National Convention and when he and Elon Musk went out front of it to hustle Teslas.
Republicans have apparently learned that if they break the law and face no consequences, the law effectively ceases to exist.
If Democrats are serious about defending both the rule of law and what’s left of America’s democracy, they must insist on prosecutions. That means removal from office for Noem, claims against the propagandists who produced and distributed the video, and charges against airport managers who continue broadcasting it. Anything less signals that the Hatch Act — and the rest of American law that could restrain Trump and his lickspittles — is a dead letter.
This is not a partisan point. Imagine if a Democratic administration produced a video blaming Republicans for a shutdown, then forced airports to broadcast it. Republicans would be demanding prosecutions, and rightly so. The law must apply equally or it means nothing at all.
Noem needs to stop lying. She needs to stop breaking the law. And Democrats need to stop pretending this is “politics as usual.” It is not. These are crimes designed to shift blame for a shutdown that is entirely the responsibility of the Republican Party, which could end it tomorrow with 51 votes in the Senate.
If there is no accountability now, America will slide further toward a future where propaganda is pumped through every government-owned screen and speaker. That is what has happened in Russia and Hungary, where public spaces are saturated with partisan messaging and independent voices silenced.
The Hatch Act was written to prevent that fate here. It must be enforced — with indictments, prosecutions, and disbarment — before it’s too late.
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HATCH ACT ON SHUTDOWN?
'Infuriating': Veterans rip Trump admin's partisan 'lawbreaking' language in VA newsletter
AN 10 25
AN 10 25
'Intolerable': Lawmaker rages at Trump for 'hijacking' agencies to send 'MAGA propaganda'
[David Badash]
BIZZARO
NYT
AUG 2
An agency that scrutinizes the conduct of federal employees has opened an investigation into Jack Smith, the former special counsel who investigated Donald J. Trump before he returned to office, following a request by a Republican senator.
The Office of Special Counsel confirmed on Saturday that it had opened an investigation into Mr. Smith for a possible violation of the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits federal workers from using their government jobs to engage in political activity.
Senator Tom Cotton, Republican of Arkansas, had asked the agency to investigate on the premise that some of Mr. Smith’s actions, such as seeking quick trial dates in the two criminal cases against Mr. Trump, were designed to influence the 2024 election.
The investigation, which was first reported by The New York Post, is unusual in several respects. First, the most severe penalty possible for a Hatch Act violation is dismissal from federal employment, and Mr. Smith left the government at the start of the year. Second, the type of prosecutorial decisions criticized by Mr. Cotton, Mr. Trump and others are far different from the type of cases the O.S.C. typically handles. The office traditionally investigates and addresses violations of federal rules about the civil service.
The investigation comes at a time when lawyers representing fired or demoted federal employees have complained that under Mr. Trump, the O.S.C. is not fulfilling its traditional role.
In February, the president dismissed the agency’s head, Hampton Dellinger, despite a federal law saying that person can only be fired for “inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office.”
At the time, Mr. Dellinger had been arguing for the reinstatement of thousands of probationary workers who had been fired by the new administration.
Devlin Barrett covers the Justice Department and the F.B.I. for The Times.
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/pompeo-faces-another-probe-for-possible-hatch-act-violations-report/
https://www.alternet.org/2019/07/republicans-shriek-about-the-criminalization-of-politics-as-trump-advisors-brazenly-break-this-1929-law
no lnx
Republicans shriek about ‘the criminalization of politics’ as Trump advisors brazenly break this 1929 law
written by Jon Perr / Daily Kos July 7, 2019
Writers, bloggers, commenters, and pundits nearly exhausted the dictionary in the runup to the president’s July 4th Trumpapalooza™. With his tanks, parades, flyovers, and personal address, Donald Trump’s appropriation of America’s Independence Day rightly earned descriptions ranging from inappropriate, disgusting, and self-serving to grotesque, Orwellian, and masturbatory. But word that the Republican National Committee was distributing special reserved-seat tickets to GOP megadonors and VIPs to a taxpayer-funded event produced a qualitatively different reaction. As conservative columnist and Never-Trumper Jennifer Rubin put it, “This is the mother of all Hatch Act violations.”
Writing in Slate, legal analyst Dahlia Lithwick offered a primer on what types of July Fourth hijinks could indeed constitute violations of the Hatch Act, the 1939 law “that bars virtually all federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities.” But whatever Hatch Act transgressions may have emerged from Donald Trump’s autodeification in D.C. last Thursday, one thing is certain: Trump’s right-wing media enablers and Republican allies on Capitol Hill will defiantly brush them under the rug. As the record-setting Hatch Act lawlessness of Trump counselor Kellyanne Conway shows, today’s Republicans have no problem with politicizing the operations of the federal government and politicizing crime itself.
As University of New Mexico professor Jason Scott Smith explained this week, the good government legislation pursued by Senator Carl Hatch sought to prevent possible partisan political abuses by a Democratic president. While fascist regimes in Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany were turning government programs into massive propaganda operations to cement the dictators’ personal power, Hatch wanted to forestall the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration from doing the same in the United States. While congressional investigations in the 1930s found that attempts to coerce WPA workers were rare and ineffective, concerns lingered about the potential for “politics in relief.” Writes Smith, “As a result, section 9(a) of Hatch’s proposed law declared, ‘No officer or employee in the executive branch of the Federal Government, or any agency or department thereof, shall take any active part in political management or in political campaigns.’”
Sixty years later, taking “active part in political management or in political campaigns” is precisely what Kellyanne Conway stands accused of doing.
With her endorsement of Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore and public statements denouncing potential Democratic candidates for president in 2020, Conway has crossed the line repeatedly. Henry Kerner of the Office of Special Counsel told Congress that, before Conway, the OSC had “never issued two reports on the same person” in the 30 years it has been independent. And while the OSC had found two minor violations by different officials during the Obama administration, “The Office of Special Counsel found Conway guilty of 11 Hatch Act violations in its recent report, and two violations in a 2018 report.” It is with good reason that Kerner in his report recommended that Conway be removed from her post.
But for Conway and her Republican defenders, these gross Hatch Act abuses were nothing more than an ill-timed fart. Conway protested that OSC staff “want to chill free speech because they don’t know how to beat him [Trump] at the ballot box.” During a hearing by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Republican Rep. Mark Meadows whined, “We have one standard for Kellyanne Conway and another standard for everyone else.” His colleague Jim Jordan regurgitated the same talking point, proclaiming, “Ms. Conway’s being targeted not just because she’s a conservative, not just because she’s in the Trump administration, but she’s being targeted because she’s good at what she does.” As Smith summed it up:
After the Office of Special Counsel recommended that White House adviser Kellyanne Conway be removed from her position for repeated violations of the Hatch Act, President Trump told the “Fox & Friends” television program, “I’m not going to fire her,” adding, “I think you’re entitled to free speech in this country.”
Conway had already signaled her lack of concern for the Hatch Act, which requires federal employees to refrain from using their public positions to engage in political activity. Responding last month to reporter questions about her track record of ignoring the act, Conway replied: “Blah, blah, blah. … Let me know when the trial starts.”
Conway’s trial hasn’t started yet, but a subpoena has been issued for her to appear before Chairman Elijah Cummings’ Oversight and Government Reform Committee. Meanwhile, right-wing attempts to paint the OSC’s Kerner as someone with a vendetta seem doomed to fail. After all, Kerner was a staffer for the same committee during the chairmanships of Republican hatchet men Jason Chaffetz and Darrell Issa. And, as it turns out, Issa was one of the GOP’s most aggressive defenders of the party’s own Hatch Act transgressors.
As you may recall, the violations of the Hatch Act came fast and furious during the administration of President George W. Bush. In 2011, the Office of Special Counsel released a devastating 118-page report that found that the Bush White House“engaged in widespread violations of a federal law which limits partisan political activity by government employees during the 2006 midterm elections” and concluded that “federal taxpayers footed the bill for improper activities that were intended to advance Republican political candidates.” Among the leading rulebreakers was President Bush’s pick to head the General Services Administration. And when Lurita Doan first came under withering bipartisan criticism in early 2007 for using her office to promote Republican congressional candidates and awarding no-bid contracts to her friends, it was Darrell Issa who circled the wagons around her.
As Political Correction documented, time and again Issa came to Doan’s defense, even going so far as to list her charitable contributions as proof of her virtue. That was hard to do with a straight face, given Doan’s pathetic performance in front of his committee, then headed by Democrat Henry Waxman. As NPR detailed in March 2007:
In her testimony, Doan preferred to emphasize her entrepreneurial efforts. But Democrats were interested in other things: a contract that she tried to award to an old friend; negotiations with Sun Microsystems, in which she became involved; and, more especially, the briefing. In January, Scott Jennings — the top aide to White House political adviser Karl Rove — talked to GSA political appointees about the 2006 election results and the Republican goals for 2008.In one exchange, the lead-off questioner for committee Democrats, Iowa freshman Rep. Bruce Braley, a former trial lawyer, asked Doan, “Would you characterize his presentation as a purely factual presentation about the results of the 2006 election?”
Doan replied, “I’m a little bit embarrassed to admit this, but I can say I honestly don’t have a recollection of the presentation at all.”
The slides showing the GOP’s top 20 target seats for the 2008 election were made public.
Nevertheless, Darrell Issa, the same man who accused Valerie Plame of perjury, attacked the families of murdered Blackwater employees and accused Congressman Joe Sestak of Hatch Act violations, portrayed Doan as a victim during that March 2007 Oversight Committee hearing. NPR reported:
Republicans stuck up for Doan. Darrell Issa of California noted that she has been running GSA for just eight months: “In your eight months, I think you’ve probably found what I found in my nearly seven years now: That this is a bureaucracy that will resist you at every point, isn’t it?”Doan’s reply: “You’re absolutely right.”
Doan ultimately resigned from the GSA on May 1, 2008, after “the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, a government watchdog agency, conducted its own probe of those claims and concluded that she made the remarks and violated the Hatch Act, which generally prohibits employees of federal agencies from using their positions for political purposes.”
For her part, the loyal Bushie Lurita Doan repaid the favor. In October 2008, Doan attacked the man Issa would eventually replace: “Most Americans have grown familiar with your lack of candor, misleading statements, and bitter partisan machinations, and certainly, your report serves as yet another example of the same ol’ same ol’ from Henry Waxman.” And in January 2011, Doan reemerged in the pages of Townhall to praise “Issa’s Early Effect“:
Congressman Darrell Issa’s chairmanship of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform has already had an effect on Democrats in the Obama Administration, even before Issa has hosted a congressional oversight hearing. The announcement of the resignation of Josh Sharfstein, the Deputy Commissioner at Food and Drug Administration (FDA), is likely just the first of many such resignations that will occur as Executive agency leaders in the Obama Administration realize that their misguided policies can’t stand up to public scrutiny…Expect an exodus of other political appointees from other federal agencies as soon as public scrutiny reveals more Obama Administration abuses of public trust. Many Democrats have depended on operating in the dark because they know their policies are indefensible. Liberal Dems who know that their policies cannot be defended are going to leave before Issa’s hawk’s eye turns on their activities.
As it turned out, “Hawkeye” Issa’s most memorable charge against Obama was a bogus one. Obama, Issa baselessly proclaimed in October 2010, “has been one of the most corrupt presidents in modern times.”
Before returning to the man who has doubtless been truly the most corrupt president in modern times, it’s worth looking at another high-profile scandal in which Republicans tried their best to ignore—or excuse—serious Hatch Act violations by their party. The revelations surrounding the Bush administration’s purge of U.S. prosecutors and politically motivated hiring of career civil servants provide a damning case study.
In May 2007, Republican California Congressman Dan Lundgren was only too happy to offer the criminalization-of-politics line in defense of another loyal Bushie, White House liaison Monica Goodling, and her boss, then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Just moments after acknowledging Goodling’s admission of violating civil service rules and Hatch Act prohibitions (“she did admit that she made mistakes in that regard”), Lundgren returned to the script, saying, “Let me just say this — and I think it’s an important point — there is too much of a tendency in this environment to try and criminalize political disputes. That’s been the effort here. They have found no basis for criminality, so the suggestion is now a vote of no confidence. Who knows what is next?”
That was a surprising statement for him to make, given that Goodling, during her May 23, 2007 testimony before the House Judiciary Committee, admitted that she had discriminated against job applicants who weren’t Republicans or conservative loyalists. Admitting that she illicitly screened out civil service job applicants who happened to be Democrats, Goodling clarified for all why she sought immunity from the committee in the first place: “I do acknowledge that I may have gone too far in asking political questions of applicants for career positions, and I may have taken inappropriate political considerations into account on some occasions, and I regret those mistakes.”
But during his questioning, then-Indiana Republican Rep. Mike Pence ignored Goodling’s confession to make a different point about the Bush administration’s purge of U.S. attorneys then under investigation.
“I’m listening very intently. I’m studying this case, and I want to explore this issue of illegal behavior with you. Because it seems to me, so much of this, and even something of what we’ve heard today in this otherwise cordial hearing, is about the criminalization of politics. In a very real sense, it seems to be about the attempted criminalization of things that are vital to our constitutional system of government, namely the taking into consideration of politics in the appointment of political officials within the government.” [Emphasis mine.]
“I am troubled,” Pence concluded, “about the fact that we seem to be moving ever further down the road of the criminalization of politics.”
As it turned out, the DOJ’s own inspector general later rejected that criminalization-of-politics defense. (As the AP reported in May 2008, “A new Justice Department report concludes that politics illegally influenced the hiring of career prosecutors and immigration judges, and largely lays the blame on top aides to former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.”) Then, on July 28, the DOJ’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Office of the Inspector General jointly issued a report titled An Investigation of Allegations of Politicized Hiring by Monica Goodling and Other Staff in the Office of the Attorney General. Its conclusion? Monica Goodling, Kyle Sampson, and other Bush Justice Department political appointees had in fact committed crimes under the Hatch Act and other civil service rules.
Which brings us back to Donald Trump and Mike Pence. As The Washington Postreported on November 30, 2018, six White House staffers were issued warnings about their Hatch Act violations:
The White House officials who were reprimanded were principal deputy press secretary Raj Shah; deputy director of communications Jessica Ditto; Madeleine Westerhout, executive assistant to the president; Helen Aguirre Ferré, former director of media affairs; Alyssa Farah, press secretary for Vice President Pence; and Jacob Wood, deputy communications director for the Office of Management and Budget.
As the Post also noted:
The reprimands were the latest cases in which high-profile Trump administration officials have been found in violation of the Hatch Act.
Others sanctioned by the Office of Special Counsel for political messages include White House adviser Kellyanne Conway; Stephanie Grisham, the first lady’s spokeswoman; Dan Scavino, former White House social media director; and Nikki Haley, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.
After Donald Trump’s Fourth of July Onanism on the Potomac, the only open question is how many more members of his team will join the list of those who broke the 1939 law also known as an “Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities.” As for Kellyanne Conway, Jason Scott Smith warned:
Laws, however, are only empty words if they are not upheld and faithfully executed by politically elected leaders and appointed officials. As Henry Kerner, whom Trump appointed to run the Office of Special Counsel, declared in his report, Conway’s “defiant attitude is inimical to the law, and her continued pattern of misconduct is unacceptable.” Conway’s actions, he concluded, “erode the principal foundation of our democratic system — the rule of law.” If Trump fails to dismiss Conway, he, too, will have eroded this crucial pillar of our system.
“Yet,” Jennifer Rubin laments, “Republicans defend this ethical cesspool.” And they’ll doubtless continue to do so by decrying “the criminalization of politics,” even as the GOP’s best and brightest politicize crime.
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ref
WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump has hijacked what for decades had been a nonpolitical Independence Day celebration on the National Mall, packing his ticketed-event speech with political appointees and Republican donors.
The Republican National Committee has been offering major donors tickets to Trump’s speech, as have political appointees at the White House and executive branch agencies.
“He’s going to have tanks out there. It’s going to be cool,” joked one RNC fundraiser on condition of anonymity. He said he received an offer for the free tickets on Friday but did not request any. “He wants to have a parade like they have in Moscow or China or North Korea.”
Trump has been enamored of public displays of military might since he attended the Bastille Day festivities in Paris in 2017. His plan for a massive military parade last year was canceled after a Defense Department estimate became public showing that it would cost $92 million and damage the city’s roads because of the weight of tanks and other equipment.
The current plans for Thursday do not include a parade, but Trump is still pushing for tanks or other military vehicles to be displayed on the National Mall, The Washington Post reported, even though their weight is liable to damage the grass and roads. Flyovers by military planes ― including Air Force One and the Navy’s Blue Angels squadron ― are also planned.
Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a New York University history professor and expert on fascism, said Trump’s need to display military hardware is a feature of authoritarians throughout history. “He needs to colonize our lives. He needs to colonize our public spaces,” she said, adding that it was “dismaying” that the Pentagon this year failed to thwart Trump’s impulses. “The military has been domesticated. I think the will to resist him has evaporated.”
Groups that advocate for government transparency and ethics, meanwhile, railed against the RNC’s involvement.
“This partisan appropriation of a public event is consistent with the record of an administration that has no regard for lines between personal or partisan interests and its public obligations,” said Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization.
Jordan Libowitz, of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said that the event could create legal problems if the federal government is involved in staging what, in essence, becomes a political event benefiting Trump.
“This sounds less and less like a government event and more and more like a campaign rally. Since it doesn’t look like the RNC is picking up the bill, this could lead to some serious legal issues,” Libowitz said.
One senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Trump’s planned speech will not be partisan. “This speech will not be political. It will be about celebrating our nation’s independence, our flag and our great military,” the official said.
But if past is prologue, Trump is almost certain to mention his reelection effort and attack Democrats. He did both at an “official” visit, as opposed to a campaign event, with the Faith and Freedom Coalition last week. He has attacked Democrats at official visits to military installations, including during his trip to Iraq last year and, most recently, at Osan Air Base in South Korea on Sunday.
“This is not a political speech,” Trump said at Osan, and then he claimed Democrats did not want to give troops new equipment. “They weren’t going to give it to you, folks. They weren’t going to. They want open borders and the hell with the military. That’s not good.”
Another White House aide, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said there is not much his staff can do if Trump chooses to ignore a prepared speech and inject campaign-style remarks. “We can only do what we can do,” the aide said.
The White House would not say exactly how many tickets were being distributed and by which groups for Trump’s planned remarks at the Lincoln Memorial early Thursday evening. However, the area eastward from the Lincoln Memorial to about halfway down the reflecting pool will be cordoned off with access regulated by the Secret Service. Such an area constitutes a dozen acres and could accommodate tens of thousands of people.
On Tuesday morning, Trump’s campaign sent out an email to at least the portion of its list in the Washington area, encouraging his supporters to attend his speech.
“We hope you’ll be able to attend as Americans from across the United States gather to celebrate our Nation’s Independence,” the email stated. “The event is open to the public and not a campaign event. Please arrive no later than 5:30 PM to help celebrate our country’s Independence Day!”
The small print at the bottom of the email contains this boilerplate language: “We believe this is an important way to reach our grassroots supporters with the most up-to-date information regarding the efforts of Donald J. Trump for President, Inc., and we’re glad you’re on our team.It’s because of grassroots supporters like you that we will Make America Great Again, and we appreciate your support. Thank you for all that you do!”
It was unclear whether those arriving without a ticket would be permitted in the close-in area inside the Secret Service perimeter, or whether Trump and his aides are getting worried about the size of the turnout.
Neither the Trump campaign nor the RNC responded to HuffPost queries about Tuesday’s invitation.
In past years, presidents have not taken part in Fourth of July celebrations, and the events have been nonpolitical. The only place that required tickets was the west portico of the Capitol overlooking the Mall and a stage for musical performers, and those were distributed by both Republican and Democratic members of Congress.
That has not happened in the case of Trump’s planned speech. The Democratic National Committee, for example, was not given any tickets to give away, according to a spokesperson. An RNC official, meanwhile, said on condition of anonymity that its distribution of tickets to the Fourth of July celebration is no different from that of other presidential events. “For context, we receive an allotment for other events like White House Christmas Open Houses, Garden Tours in spring and fall, etc.,” the official said.
Those events, however, take place at the White House, the president’s residence, not at a public park like the National Mall.
Trump’s injection of himself into the celebration is inappropriate, said Ben-Ghiat. “The whole point is nonpartisan. It’s a national holiday. And he can’t let that stand. He has to make it about him,” she said.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which is suing Trump for violating the Constitution by accepting money from foreign governments through his hotels, said the invitations to donors by a campaign committee he controls will also generate cash for himself.
“Look for the big donors to make appearances alongside major Trump administration figures at the Trump Hotel,” Libowitz said. “It’s already sold out for the 3rd and 4th despite charging double what the other luxury hotels are charging around the holiday.”
Trump continues to own and profit from a hotel blocks from the White House, despite his promise during the campaign to separate himself from his family business. The hotel has taken in millions from the RNC, Trump’s reelection campaign, foreign governments and U.S. taxpayers in the last two year
https://www.alternet.org/2019/06/ethics-expert-details-the-scandals-in-the-white-houses-new-list-of-staff-salaries/
no lnx
Ethics expert details the scandals in the White House’s new list of staff salaries
CODY FENWICK
28 JUN 2019 AT 22:29 ET
Walter Shaub, the former director of the Office of Government Ethics who resigned in protest under President Donald Trump, has been a dogged critic of the administration as it flagrantly defies basic standards of behavior for the executive branch.And in a new Twitter thread on Friday, Shaub combed through the new list of White House staff salaries — which show that not only do violations not trigger punishments, but they don’t even hinder raises.
He pointed out, for instance, that newly named White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham — who used to do PR for the first lady — got a promotion and raise, despite having violated the Hatch Act.
Walter Shaub
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@waltshaub
- Jun 28, 2019
2019 White House salaries was just posted.https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/July-1-2019-Report-FINAL.pdf …
Walter Shaub
?
@waltshaub
Looks like Stephanie Grisham's punishment for violating the Hatch Act was a $28,000 pay raise. That'll teach her.
But Grisham is still in the junior varsity league when it comes to violating the Hatch Act. White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, on the other hand, has gone pro — she seems to think violating the law, which bars federal employees from electioneering, is part of her job. Trump’s own appointee to the Office of Special Counsel called for her firing, saying her brazen violations of the law were “unprecedented.”
But Trump didn’t fire her. In fact, as Shaub pointed out, she got a raise!Just not as generous as Grisham.
Walter Shaub
?
@waltshaub
Replying to @waltshaub
There's some real unfairness to Stephanie Grisham getting a $28,000 pay raise: Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act way more times and only got a $3,300 pay raise.
Conway makes $183,000 a year, which is the salary cap for White House employees.
Madeleine Westerhout, the director of Oval Office operations, got a $15,000 raise and is now making $145,000, Shaub said. She, too, he pointed out, violated the Hatch Act, according to the Office of Special Counsel.
Shaub also noted that Mercedes Schlapp, like Conway, is making likewise making the maximum salary. This was notable, he pointed out, in light of the fact that her husband, Matt Schlapp, lobbies the Executive Office of the President. In other words, he’s getting paid to have influence over the president while his wife is working in the White House. It’s an outrageous conflict of interest, but under Trump, it’s par for the course.