At least one government watchdog group is calling for an investigation into a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission who appeared to make a re-election pitch for President Trump at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday.
FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly was asked a question during a panel about how the independent agency can avoid “regulatory ping pong” every election cycle.
To start his answer, O’Rielly said, “I think what we can do is make sure as conservatives that we elect good people to both the House, the Senate, and make sure that President Trump gets re-elected.”
That statement alarmed American Oversight, a nonprofit group started in 2017, which called for the Office of Special Counsel to begin an immediate investigation. The group alleges O’Rielly violated the Hatch Act, a law that bars federal employees from using their offices to campaign for or against political candidates.
American Oversight’s executive director, Austin Evers, called for O’Rielly’s resignation.
“Commissioner O’Rielly’s naked partisanship fundamentally undermines the independence that is supposed to be at the heart of the FCC’s work,” Evers said in a statement. “It’s unlikely the public’s trust can be restored by anything less than his resignation because everyone now knows what his ultimate goal is: the reelection of Donald Trump.”
In a statement provided to the Washington Post, an O’Rielly spokesman said the commissioner had no intention of engaging in political activism.
“Commissioner O’Rielly was asked a question on how to prevent the agency from ping ponging back and forth. He tried to respond in a factual way without engaging in advocacy,” the spokesman said.
A second watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), said it is reviewing O’Rielly’s comment; a spokesman told the Post that it “certainly raises Hatch Act issues.”
O’Rielly isn’t the only FCC commissioner facing CPAC controversy.
FCC Chairman Ajit Pai was awarded a handmade rifle from the National Rifle Association on Friday, which has riled up some ethics experts.
“Anyone care to explain to me why the FCC thinks that the ethics rules allow Ajit Pai to accept the gift of an expensive handmade gun from the NRA, an entity whose interests he can affect (and has affected) by the performance of his official duties? Am I missing something?”, tweeted Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics.
