The Office of Special Counsel on Thursday recommended the removal of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway from federal office for violating the Hatch Act, which bars federal employees from engaging in political activity in the course of their work.

The report submitted to President Trump found that Conway violated the Hatch Act on numerous occasions by "disparaging Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in her official capacity during television interviews and on social media."

"Ms. Con­way's vi­o­la­tions, if left un­pun­ished, would send a mes­sage to all fed­eral em­ploy-ees that they need not abide by the Hatch Act's re­stric­tions. Her ac­tions thus erode the prin­ci­pal foun­da­tion of our de­mo­c­ra­tic sys­tem—the rule of law," the let­ter said.

The of­fice rec­om­mends to Pres­i­dent Trump that he re­move Ms. Con­way from her post.

In re­sponse, the White House re­jected the rec­om­men­da­tion, call­ing the ac­tions against Ms. Con­way "deeply flawed and vi­o­late her con­sti­tu­tional rights to free speech and due process."

The White House added that the OSC's de­ci­sions "seem to be in­flu­enced by me­dia pres­sure and lib­eral or­ga­ni­za­tions—and per­haps OSC should be mind­ful of its own man­date to act in a fair, im­par­tial, non­po­lit­i­cal man­ner, and not mis­in­ter­pret or weaponize the Hatch Act."

The Hatch Act stip­u­lates that most ex­ec­u­tive branch of­fi­cials must not en­gage in po­lit­i­cal ac­tiv­ity in an of­fi­cial ca­pac­ity at any time. The pres­i­dent is one of few ex­cep­tions to that rule.

The Of­fice of Spe­cial Coun­sel is a gov­ern­ment body charged with en­forc­ing the Hatch Act, a law passed in 1939 that aims to pre­vent the gov­ern­ment from in­flu­enc­ing elec­tions or act­ing in a par­ti­san man­ner.

Ms. Con­way has been rep­ri-manded by the OSC a num­ber of times since Mr. Trump took of­fice, in­clud­ing once for ad­vo­cat­ing for Re­pub­li­can Roy Moore in Al­aba­ma's spe­cial elec­tion for Sen­ate in a tele­vi-sion in­ter­view while ap­pear­ing in her of­fi­cial ca­pac­ity.

White House so­cial me­dia di­rec­tor Dan Scav­ino and for­mer U.S. am­bas­sador to the United Na­tions Nikki Ha­ley also re­ceived of­fi­cial warn­ings over tweets that the OSC said broke the rules.

Vivian Salama, Wall Street Journal, June 13, 2019.

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June 13, 2019

Voices4America Post Script. FYI. Henry Kerner, who runs the OSC, was a Trump appointee who previously worked for Senator John McCain and the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (chaired by Republican Congressmen Chaffetz and Issa).

#RemoveKellyanne #ImpeachTrumpNo