Congressman Krishnamoorthi Receives Response To His Inquiry From The Office Of Special Counsel: Trump Administration Officials Grossly Violated The Hatch Act

Statement

Today, Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, who serves on both the House Oversight and Intelligence Committees, received a response to his August 26th 2020 letter to the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) with Congressman Don Beyer in which they requested an investigation into potential Hatch Act violations by senior Trump Administration officials during the 2020 Republican National Convention. In the letter addressed today to Rep. Krishnamoorthi and Rep. Beyer, which was accompanied by a new OSC report, the OSC confirmed that it found that 13 senior Trump Administration officials violated the Hatch Act, including when Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf presided over a naturalization ceremony used for the 2020 RNC Convention.

"This new report from the Office of Special Counsel demonstrates the Trump Administration's complete disregard and disdain for the Hatch Act, both as the law of the land and as the moral separation of our government and elections," Congressman Krishnamoorthi said. "I wrote to the OSC in 2020 requesting this investigation into the Trump Administration's use off public resources for political campaign activities, and I am disappointed at the breadth and depth of violations it found. Our government and government employees serve the people, not any individual nor any political party. This separation is crucial to our democracy, and I intend to continue to fight for it."

Other officials found in the OSC report to have violated the Hatch Act include Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, Jared Kushner, Stephen Miller, and others. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from participating in partisan political activity in an official capacity, barring them from engaging in any activity directed toward the success or failure of any political party or candidate.

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