Campaign Events at White House Legal
“The Hatch Act was the wall between the power of the government and that of the candidates. Tonight, a candidate demolished that wall and wielded power for his own campaign,” tweeted Walter Shaub, the former head of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics. Shaub stepped down in 2017 after clashing with the Trump administration over the president`s failure to divest himself of his companies. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have announced that they will reimburse the federal government for all taxpayers` money used. According to the Department of Defense, “military personnel and federal employees acting in an official capacity may not engage in activities that link the DOD to a partisan political campaign or election, a candidate, cause, or problem,” according to an agency directive and the Hatch Act. Government officials have been cited as violating the Hatch Act 13 times by federal investigators in the Special Counsel`s Office (not to be confused with Special Advocate Robert Mueller). Twelve other investigations are ongoing. The law dates back to the New Deal era, enacted after a scandal that pressured Works Progress Administration employees to work on the campaigns of candidates who were friends of President Franklin D.
Roosevelt. However, Jacobson called this a loophole, arguing that the explanation would be insufficient if the intended purpose of staging and filming Tuesday`s events was to create material that the convention could use. “It doesn`t matter if you publish it first — it`s your intention that counts,” he said, adding that the events presented at the Republican convention “are a combination of exploiting a flaw in the fact that the president is not covered, but brazen violations of the law by his subordinates — especially Chad Wolf, which was an obvious and open violation.” For much of his presidency, Trump has used official events, including press conferences and speeches inside and outside the White House, to repeatedly attack his political enemies. WASHINGTON — The Trump administration on Wednesday rebuffed widespread criticism that its staging and filming of White House events used as programming for the Republican National Convention was illegal — rejecting arguments that it violated the Hatch Act, a law designed to prevent the use of public power for private political purposes. Expenses, including travel considered political, must be paid for by the president`s re-election campaign, not the U.S. government. “The campaign decided to use publicly available content for campaign purposes,” the official said. “There was no violation of the law.” The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in most political activities in federal buildings or while in service. While the president and vice president are exempt from the civil law provisions of the Hatch Act, federal employees such as Pompeo, Wolf, and all executive branch personnel who helped carry out the events are not. Trump has broken those standards for months — attacking his Democratic rival Joe Biden from the rose garden and airing campaign videos in the White House briefing room — but his prime-time speech at the convention will represent the most blatant blur of the lines to date. “There was a very clear line between what was a campaign event and what was an official event,” said Greg Jenkins, President George W. Bush`s pre-election director during the period that included the 2004 re-election campaign.
“If you could stretch things and say, yes, it`s perfectly legal to do it, but it feels like an inadequacy – you don`t.” The Hatch Act, a civil administrative law, does not apply to the president and vice president. But the law applies to executive personnel involved in planning or holding political events at the White House, including video segments filmed there, experts said. Pompeo`s speech on a mission abroad is a “blatant use of the office for overtly political purposes” that undermines the critical work of the State Department, said Kate Bedingfield, Biden`s deputy campaign director. But the White House press office denied any violation of the Hatch Act. He argued that because the White House posted the videos on the YouTube channel, where it regularly posted videos of events, the Trump campaign was free to use that unclaimed and publicly available content for political purposes later that evening. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Republicans and Democrats have significantly reduced their political conventions. Former Vice President Joe Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, delivered their acceptance speeches in Biden`s hometown of Wilmington, Delaware, with just a few dozen reporters and campaign staff in the room. Cases of election interference in Georgia. Atlanta District Attorney Fani T.
Willis has led a wide-ranging criminal investigation into efforts by Mr. Trump and his allies to reverse his 2020 election defeat in Georgia. This case could pose the most immediate legal threat to the former president and his associates. Delaney Marsco, legal counsel at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit organization, says the Trump administration has often circumvented ethics rules in the hope that they will avoid any impact, whether it`s the Hatch Act or circumventing oversight by Congress or the inspectors general. Behind the scenes last week, campaign and congressional staff began working on the White House`s South Lawn to install lights, speakers, and a stage for President Donald Trump to deliver his acceptance speech as the Republican Party`s presidential candidate. Trucks brought long metal rods and beams, and construction machinery was installed next to the rose garden. The OSC noted in a statement Wednesday that since the White House rose garden and lawn are not considered government buildings, federal employees would not necessarily violate Hatch`s Law if they attended political events. Lord. Meadows also said that “you can`t break the law – you shouldn`t do it,” but suggested that the Hatch Act was outdated. The White House advanced a legal theory as to why the two ceremonies were not violations of the Hatch Act, saying its role in staging and posting videos of them on YouTube was an official act that had nothing to do with the campaign`s decision to then use publicly available material for political purposes. President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump`s use of the White House for events related to this week`s Republican National Convention is legal, according to the U.S. special adviser.
Trump administration officials have been cited as violating the Hatch Act 13 times by federal investigators from the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative and law enforcement agency. At least a dozen other investigations appear to be ongoing, according to executive sources and legal watchdog groups. Later in the day, Trump doubled down on the idea, telling reporters, “It`s legal. There is no Hatch Law because it does not concern the president.â Asked about the legality of Trump`s proposed plan, Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Clark. Louis, who deals with government ethics, told CNN: “While the president delivering his RNC acceptance speech from the White House would not be a violation for the president as such, it could be a violation of federal employees who are helping him prepare for this event. However, the involvement of White House staff in the creation of congressional events could raise concerns about the Hatch Act, the office told House Democrats in a letter this month. “Presidents and governments are always trying to get re-elected, always trying to become more popular,” Ladd said. “But they`ve always tried to follow the Hatch Act by not holding explicit campaign events on government property, including in the White House.” Mark Hertling, a retired Army lieutenant general, said in a tweet Wednesday that Marines work full-time in the White House and do their job.
