The U.S. Office of Special Counsel found White House economic adviser Peter Navarro violated the Hatch Act ‘on several occasions.”
“OSC concluded that Dr. Navarro violated the Hatch Act on several occasions when he engaged in political activity in his official capacity,” Special Counsel Henry Kerner wrote in a letter to President Trump with the report on Monday. “OSC provided Dr. Navarro with an opportunity to respond to the report, but he has chosen not to do so. Therefore, OSC submits this report to you for appropriate action.”
The Hatch Act is a federal law that prohibits employees of the executive branch from participating in political activity of any kind in their official capacity. The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog group, said it had filed several complaints about Navarro’s actions.
The report found that Navarro “violated the Hatch Act by using his official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of the 2020 presidential election through both media appearances and social media.”
The report cited “at least six media interviews” between May 26 and Oct. 19 during which Navarro “appeared in his official capacity as Assistant to the President” and “repeatedly attacked presidential candidate Joe Biden and/or vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris,” calling Biden “compromised” and using nicknames including “Beijing Biden.”
“His campaign rhetoric was intended to harm Mr. Biden’s presidential candidacy and encourage viewers not to vote for him in the 2020 election,” the report said. “By using his official platform as a high-level White House official to engage in these partisan attacks, Dr. Navarro violated the Hatch Act’s prohibition against using his official authority or influence to affect an election.”
The report also referenced a number of tweets from an account that Navarro used in his official capacity that violated the Hatch Act. Navarro called Biden “a pawn in Xi Jinping’s Great Global Game” and said that Biden “tore the heart out of the heartland by voting for NAFTA,” touting that “the Latino community knows who will deliver prosperity and security to the American land.”
“Dr. Navarro’s violations of the Hatch Act were knowing and willful,” the report concludes. “Five of the interviews discussed above occurred after OSC sent its July 21, 2020 letter to Dr. Navarro, putting him on notice of the allegations OSC was investigating. Yet Dr. Navarro continued to violate the Hatch Act by attacking Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during official interviews despite knowing that OSC was investigating him for engaging in that very activity.”
Violating the Hatch Act can result in a number of penalties depending on the severity of the violation. At the most extreme, Navarro could be removed from federal service and barred from serving in a federal capacity for up to five years, according to the OSC. On the other end of the spectrum, He could simply be reprimanded or charged a civil penalty not to exceed $1,000. The White House could also decide not to do anything, as it has done with a number of Hatch Act violation reports.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the White House for comment.
“Given Navarro’s repeated violations, and OSC’s notes that he’s had training, and continued to violate the Hatch Act knowing full well he was under investigation for violating the Hatch Act, it’s clear that Navarro should be fired,” Jordan Libowtitz, the communications director for CREW, told the Washington Examiner. “Given that President Trump does not seem to care about people violating the law if it means helping him, we doubt he will move to take any punitive action.”
Several Trump administration officials have been found to be in violation of the Hatch Act, including former White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, whom the OSC went so far as to recommend be removed from federal service.
