Trump Officials Weaken Rules Insulating Government Workers From Politics
The Trump administration moved on Friday to weaken federal prohibitions on government employees showing support for President Trump while at work, embracing the notion that they should be allowed to wear campaign paraphernalia and removing an independent review board's role in policing violations.
The Office of Special Counsel, an agency involved in enforcing the restrictions, announced the changes to the interpretation of the Hatch Act, a Depression-era law devised to ensure that the federal work force operates free of political influence or coercion. The revisions, a resurrection of rules that Mr. Trump rolled out at the end of his first term but that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. repealed, could allow for the startling sight of government officials sporting Trump-Vance buttons or 'Make America Great Again' hats.
Critics have said the law was already largely toothless, and officials in the first Trump administration were routinely accused of violating it, with little punishment meted out. And the changes do not roll back Hatch Act restrictions entirely, but do so in a way that uniquely benefits Mr. Trump: Visible support for candidates and their campaigns in the future is still banned, but support for the current officeholder is not.
The move may not violate the law, because it will not influence the outcome of an election, experts say. But it threatens to further politicize the government's professional work force, which Mr. Trump has been seeking to bend to his will as he tests the bounds of executive power.
'This is a really dark day,' Kathleen Clark, a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis and a government ethics lawyer, said in an interview on Friday. A president should work to ensure that the public knows the government is for everyone, she said.
'When you go into a Social Security office, if they're still open, you will be treated the same whether you voted for the current president or not,' she said, referring to the government downsizing efforts since Mr. Trump returned to the Oval Office.
'This is another example of Trump grabbing hold, seizing control of the federal government's power, as though it was his own system, instead of acknowledging that he has a role to play as a public servant,' Ms. Clark said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Office of Special Counsel issued other opinions on Friday that will weaken enforcement of the law, by removing an independent review board, the Merit Systems Protection Board, from its role reviewing claims of violations. The office — which historically was independent but is now led by a Trump official after Mr. Trump fired its leader, starting a bitter court fight — will review accusations and send findings to the White House, which is unlikely to take action against its own backers.
The Hatch Act has been in effect for more than 80 years. It was intended to prevent presidents from handing out patronage jobs and filling the administration with political cronies.
Allowing the workplace display of support comes as Mr. Trump takes steps to drastically increase the number of political appointees in the federal government, which would allow presidents to install more loyalists in senior positions — the very thing the authors of the Hatch Act sought to prevent.
Federal employees have been under significant stress, many fearing they may be fired as the administration carries out mass layoffs.
Now, Trump-appointed managers could be walking around wearing Trump-Vance gear, said Richard W. Painter, a professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and the chief ethics lawyer in the George W. Bush White House.
'I think it's destructive to allow it,' he said.
Hampton Dellinger, the Senate-confirmed head of the Office of Special Counsel until Mr. Trump fired him, said, 'Keeping partisan politics out of government services has benefited all Americans, particularly taxpayers, for generations.'
During the first Trump administration, several of his top advisers were accused of violating the law, including Kellyanne Conway, his White House counselor, who was cited as a 'repeat offender.' Mr. Trump refused to fire her.
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