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The report, which was sent to President Donald Trump, revealed that Conway had broken the rules by "denigrating Democratic presidential candidates while speaking in an official capacity during televised interviews and on social media". .
(The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan politics while performing their official duties.)
Conway's violations were linked to two appearances on television during the preparation of the Alabama Senate special elections in 2018. On November 20, in an appearance in "Fox and Friends," Mr. Conway stated about Democrat Doug Jones:
"Doug Jones, Alabama, do not be fooled, he'll vote against tax cuts, he's low on crime, low on borders, he's good at raising taxes, he's terrible. for the owners, Doug Jones is a liberal doctrinaire, so he says nothing and the media is trying to strengthen him. "
A few weeks later, Conway was back to the point: defending Republican Roy Moore at an appearance in CNN's "New Day" allegations that he had behaved inappropriately with several women. In this interview, Conway also addressed those who said that she was too political.
"Whenever I express a feeling towards a candidate, people who want to make themselves relevant have the air time and the Twitter time, so I will not go there. not there, "she said. Chris Cuomo, one of the presenters of "New Day," warned Conway that she needed to "pay attention to the Hatch Act".
She did not seem to heed this advice. Which does not matter, honestly.
Here's why: Although the Office of the Special Advisor is an independent federal agency overseen by a Trump appointee, it has no enforcement powers. (The OSC is different from the Office of the Special Attorney, which reports to the Department of Justice.) The OSC can make recommendations – as if Conway should be fired – but it can not make the dismissal occurs. And there is about a one in three chance that Trump or his White House do it. (White House spokesman Steven Groves called the OSC's opinion "deeply flawed".)
But the fact that Conway does not go anywhere does not mean that this decision of the Office of the Special Council is not revealing. Because that's it. It's a window to how all the lines are blurred at Trump's White House and how political calculations guide all the decisions that are made.
Let's start with this second part first. To be clear: The Trump White House is not the first to include political figures – like Conway, a former pollster and his award-winning 2016 campaign manager. Barack Obama had David Axelrod and David Plouffe – two senior campaigners – in his government. George W. Bush installed Karl Rove, his personal political Svengali, at the White House. And so on.
What is different from Trump – and Conway – is that this is a president who is running for a second term, openly and actively, since almost the second term he has been sworn in as president. (On the day of Trump's inauguration, he formed his re-election campaign for 2020.) Until March 2019, Trump had already raised $ 97 million for his run for 2020. He is expected to officially launch his bid for 2020 next week in Florida. And so on.
In short: most presidents are political. They simply did their best to start the political part of the job as late as possible in their first term. Trump always seemed to appreciate the purely political aspects of work and therefore began to do it sooner than any president of modern history. This sets the tone for those who work for him, including Conway.
And this traditional separation of politics and the work of the official government has been even more blurred by the fact that Trump has destroyed all lines of "how does it work" in Washington since his arrival here in early 2017. He has openly rebuked the ministry of Justice for not having he thinks that it is necessary to investigate. He asked the White House lawyer to say publicly that Trump had never ordered him to fire special advocate Robert Mueller. He said that there was a national emergency at the border to get money in order to build a border wall that he was not able to secure through the normal legislative process .
Again and again and again, Trump has broken the rules that are so dear to Washington. Conway mocking the Hatch Act echoes the broader theory that Washington's old rules mean nothing in Trump's new order.
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