John,
The idea that government leaders would not and could not use taxpayer dollars and their own authority to keep themselves in power is a cornerstone of American democracy. Last week, President Trump and the Republican National Convention challenged that idea by merging his re-election campaign with the power of the presidency and the taxpayer funded resources of the federal government.
Not only did President Trump give his acceptance speech from the White House, but Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech from Fort McHenry, and Melania Trump gave a speech from the Rose Garden. Not only did Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf violate the Hatch Act—the law that prohibits government officials from using their positions for electoral politics—by participating in a naturalization ceremony as part of the RNC, but the new citizens were not told the ceremony would be aired during the RNC. Not only did Secretary of State Mike Pompeo violate State Department rules by giving a speech from Jerusalem, but he also broke State Department policy that he personally signed off on. Even lower profile Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue violated the Hatch Act last week. It was so pervasive that we counted at least 15 additional Hatch Act violations during the RNC and DNC by Trump administration officials.
The Hatch Act isn’t some boring technical law buried deep in a federal manual, it’s the law meant to keep government officials from using taxpayer dollars and their own authorities to keep themselves in power. And it is part of what protects us against totalitarianism.
The only defense that the White House could offer for their blatant lawlessness was that “nobody outside of the beltway really cares.”
We know how wrong that is. We know that thousands of CREW supporters like you, and indeed, millions of Americans in all parts of the country, care deeply about ethical government. Last year, more than 37,000 CREW supporters signed on to our petition calling for Kellyanne Conway to resign for her egregious and repeated violations of the Hatch Act. If you care about the Hatch Act, and you are one of the people who was outraged by what you saw last week, share this email with your friends and family and consider supporting CREW’s work.
What we saw last week was a gross abuse of power. We are not going to stand for this—we’ve spent the last week calling out these egregious abuses, filing complaints, and pushing for Hatch Act reforms in Congress. CREW’s complaints have led to more and harsher reprimands against the Trump administration than any other administration in history. We’ll continue to fight back for as long as it takes.
Thank you for being a part of this fight,
Noah Bookbinder
Executive Director, CREW
