WASHINGTON – In response to a Hatch Act complaint filed by Campaign Legal Center (CLC), the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) sent a letter to President Donald Trump recommending that Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway be removed from office. CLC received the letter by email today from Ana Galindo-Marrone, the chief of OSC’s Hatch Act Unit. The letter calls Conway’s repeated Hatch Act violations “egregious, notorious, and ongoing,” and says that “her actions erode the principle foundation of our democratic system – the rule of law.” While OSC investigates Hatch Act violations, only the president can execute disciplinary action against a federal employee at Conway’s level.

Delaney Marsco, ethics counsel at CLC, released the following statement:

“We applaud the Office of Special Counsel for taking this matter seriously and issuing a scathing rebuke of Conway’s careless approach to ethics laws. Strict compliance with the Hatch Act is necessary to keep partisan politics independent from the administration of federal programs, and to ensure officials do not use their entrusted authority to affect the political process. Now the ball is in the White House’s court. If the President fails to follow through on OSC’s recommendations, it sends a signal that there is one set of rules for average federal workers, and another set of rules for people close to the president."

Most recently, CLC filed a complaint against Conway with OSC on May 8 when Conway made partisan political remarks about the 2020 presidential election campaign in her official capacity: she discussed official topics alongside the partisan political attacks, and she was on White House property, with the White House and the executive office buildings clearly visible in the background. Last year, following CLC’s complaints, OSC determined that Conway violated the Hatch Act by using interviews with Fox & Friends and CNN’s New Day to advocate against the election of a U.S. Senate candidate.

OSC cited these and other examples of Conway’s Hatch Act violations in recommending that she be removed from office. This is not the first time OSC sought severe discipline for Hatch Act violations:

• Last year, OSC sought removal of a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) employee for repeated Hatch Act violations.
• In 2015, OSC secured a 112-day suspension for a Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) employee who engaged in partisan political activity in the workplace and solicited political contributions.
• In 2014, OSC secured the resignation of a Federal Election Commission (FEC) attorney who had posted partisan political tweets and participated in an online media interview from an FEC facility where she criticized the Republican Party and its presidential candidate.
• Also in 2014, OSC levied a 100-day unpaid suspension against an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) employee who urged callers to to reelect President Obama over an IRS help line.
• OSC also secured a 14-day suspension of an IRS employee who criticized Republicans in her conversations with a taxpayer.

Learn more about the actions CLC has taken urging enforcement of the Hatch Act.

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump was asked by ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos yesterday whether his campaign would accept damaging information against his 2020 rivals from foreigners – such as China or Russia – or report such an offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Trump said, “I think you might want to listen, there isn’t anything wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country [and said] ‘we have information on your opponent’ – oh, I think I’d want to hear it.” In the interview, Trump suggested that there is nothing wrong with a foreign government providing an American candidate information on a political opponent.

Trevor Potter, President of the Campaign Legal Center (CLC), and a former Republican Chairman of the Federal Election Commission, released the following statement in response:

“The President’s statement demonstrates a shocking lack of concern about the harm of foreign interference in American elections. By indicating his willingness to consider accepting opposition research from foreigners, President Trump is opening the door even wider to foreign meddling in the 2020 election, and demonstrating that he has learned nothing from 2016. When foreign governments or citizens intervene in American elections to help a candidate, they may well seek something in return. At a minimum, they are acting in their own interests, not ours. With the Mueller report now public, President Trump and other candidates are on notice that soliciting or accepting valuable foreign intelligence for domestic campaign purposes violates existing federal campaign finance law.”

The Mueller report concluded that opposition research is a “thing of value” subject to the foreign national contribution ban. As Mueller explained, “a foreign entity that engaged in [opposition] research and provided resulting information to a campaign could exert a greater effect on an election, and a greater tendency to ingratiate the donor to the candidate, than a gift of money or tangible things of value.” Mueller determined that Donald Trump Jr. setting up a meeting to accept “high level and sensitive” opposition research from a foreign government could violate the federal prohibition on soliciting a contribution from a person he knew was a foreign national. Although factual questions about Trump Jr.’s state of mind and the value of the opposition research led Muller not to pursue criminal charges, that determination does not alter the illegality of soliciting or accepting valuable opposition research from a foreign national. The FEC may still seek civil penalties for the violation as alleged in the complaint filed by CLC, Common Cause and Democracy 21 about this matter, which was supplemented after the release of the report. It is still pending and has not yet been resolved.

CLC released a report in May: What Special Counsel Mueller’s Report Tells Us About Campaign Finance Law And Foreign Interference