Kayleigh McEnany violates federal law on live TV and pretends she doesn’t work for White House
The Hatch Act is perfectly clear.
Officially labeled the Hatch Act of 1939, An Act to Prevent Pernicious Political Activities, the legislation prohibits civil service employees in the executive branch of the federal government — except the president and vice president — from engaging in certain forms of political activity, including abstaining from “any active part” in political campaigns.
For many members of the Trump administration, the law may as well not exist.
Every major spokesperson for Donald Trump has studiously ignored the law’s prohibitions on partisan campaign activities, from his former senior advisor Kellyanne Conway to each of his many press secretaries.
His current White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, perhaps because her tenure coincided with the last months of the 2020 election, has been the most egregious violator of the Hatch Act since Conway’s departure from the administration.
The press secretary has invented her own unique interpretation of the Hatch Act, one that has never been tried before since it so clearly violates both the spirit and the letter of this particular law.
McEnany seems to believe she can somehow flick a switch and have her words not be considered to be uttered by someone in the official capacity of the current press secretary but by the 2020 Trump campaign advisor who somehow resides in the same body as the press secretary.
It’s as if an active duty military officer tried to argue that the laws against desertion don’t apply to them after they’ve gone AWOL because they did so in their capacity as a private citizen.
McEnany tried to employ her erroneous excuse for her clearly political activity in supporting Donald Trump’s insane claims that massive fraud was the only reason for his five million vote deficit in his loss to President-elect Joe Biden while on Fox News this morning, as Vox’s Aaron Rupar handily documented.
Kayleigh's got papers pic.twitter.com/VcONyQAgmT
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 12, 2020
Add your name to tell Trump: You Lost! Concede!
"That would be a question more for the White House" — Kayleigh McEnany works for the White House pic.twitter.com/0MsK8qRK4E
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 12, 2020
How clever of McEnany to pretend that her campaign advisor self has no contact with her press secretary self.
That may help her if — or preferably, when — she is prosecuted for her violations of the Hatch Act once Democrats regain control of the Executive Branch and the Justice Department begins to properly investigate the actions of the previous administration and the many nefarious activities they have taken to undermine the rule of law and the independence of the nation’s top law enforcement agency.
Oh, to be in the gallery of the court as McEnany’s attorneys try to convince the judge that two separate people reside in the same body!
Usually, such claims are followed by institutionalization in a mental health facility and treatment for multiple personality disorder.
Given the behavior of many in the Trump administration, we may soon see quite a few people wielding an insanity defense in future court proceedings.
These mutant Republicans were never very good with personal responsibility when it applies to themselves and not those they wish to rule over.
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
Original reporting by Aaron Rupar at Vox.
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