The U.S. Office of Special Counsel determined White House counselor Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act during two television interviews during which she discussed why voters should support Republican Roy Moore over Democrat Doug Jones in the Alabama special Senate election.
The office announced Tuesday it sent an investigative report to President Trump detailing its findings. Special counsel Henry Kerner said in a letter to the president he is referring Conway’s Hatch Act violations to him for “consideration of appropriate disciplinary action.”
Conway’s first violation occurred during a Nov. 20 interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends,” during which she urged Alabama voters not to support Jones in the upcoming special election and “gave an implied endorsement” of Moore.
The Office of Special Counsel concluded Conway “advocated for the failure of [Jones’s] candidacy.”
“Her intentional partisan jabs against Doug Jones were made in her official capacity and meant to persuade voters not to support him in the Alabama special election,” the report states.
The second violation occurred Dec. 6. Then, in an interview with CNN’s “New Day,” Conway talked about why voters should back Moore instead of Jones.
During the interview, Conway “repeatedly described Doug Jones as a liberal Democrat and gave reasons why voters should not support him in the Alabama special election,” the report from the Office of Special Counsel states.
The office found that Conway attributed her remarks during “New Day” to Trump, but said in doing so, Conway was “still providing voters with reasons to vote for Roy Moore and against Doug Jones.”
“Indeed, framing her responses to reflect the president’s position arguably served as an additional and more persuasive reason for voters to support Roy Moore and not Doug Jones,” the report states.
Conway appeared on both networks in her official capacity as White House counselor.
“Miss Conway’s statements during the ‘Fox and Friends’ and ‘New Day’ interviews impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates in the Alabama special election for U.S. Senate,” the Office of Special Counsel said in its report.
The White House defended Conway and disagreed with the Office of Special Counsel’s findings.
“Kellyanne Conway did not advocate for or against the election of any particular candidate. She simply expressed the president’s obvious position that he have people in the House and Senate who support his agenda,” deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement. “In fact, Kellyanne’s statements actually show her intention and desire to comply with the Hatch Act—as she twice declined to respond to the host’s specific invitation to encourage Alabamans to vote for the Republican.”
The Hatch Act prohibits government employees from using their official positions to campaign for or against political candidates.
Kerner said in his letter to Trump that Conway knew of the Hatch Act’s prohibitions when she “chose during both interviews to repeatedly identify reasons why voters should support one candidate over another in the Alabama special election.”
According to the report, Conway received Hatch Act guidance in the time between her interviews on Fox News and CNN.
The Office of Special Counsel said it provided Conway with an opportunity to respond to the allegations, which she did not do.
The Office of White House Counsel did, however, submit explanations of Conway’s comments
The Office of White House Counsel did, however, submit explanations of Conway’s comments, and argued Conway spoke about the “prospects of the president’s agenda in Congress” and “sought to articulate, without engaging in any advocacy, why the president’s posture with respect to [Roy Moore] had changed.”
The Office of Special Counsel said this argument “lacks merit.”
Conway has been in hot water before for comments made on television while serving in her official capacity as counselor to the president.
In a February 2017 interview with Fox News, Conway encouraged viewers to buy products from Ivanka Trump’s fashion line.
Conway’s comments appeared to violate a federal ethics rule prohibiting federal employees from using their government positions to endorse products.
Then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters Conway was “counseled on the subject.”
