Republican Senators Chuck Grassley and Ron Johnson want to know why FBI agent Peter Strzok isn’t facing charges under the Hatch Act.
Did OIG refer these allegations to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to a potential Hatch Act inquiry? If not, why not?
There’s actually a simple answer to the question presented by Grassley and Johnson—it’s because that would be really, really stupid. The allegation against Strzok is that he shared private text messages with one other person, FBI employee Lisa Page. Which is to the Hatch Act as dinosaurs are to tennis rackets … unrelated.
A quick overview of the Hatch Act runs like this … most federal employees can take part in political campaigns in their private lives, except they can’t use their position as a platform to promote a candidate or solicit funds. FBI agents are part of a group under additional restrictions that forbids them from taking an active role in a political campaign. But none of this, none of this, comes even close to saying “you can’t talk about politics in text messages shared with a friend.” The idea it does show the lengths that Johnson and Grassley are willing to reach: Strzok appears to have committed second degree Not Being a Fan of Donald Trump. Which Republicans are sure must be a crime.
That’s not to say real Hatch Act violations don’t occur. They do. And they look just like this.
In discussing whether the president has enough votes to get a tax bill through the Senate, Conway (without prompting) attacked Doug Jones, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Alabama. “And Doug Jones in Alabama?” she said, “Folks, don’t be fooled. He’ll be a vote against tax cuts. He’s weak on crime, weak on borders. He’s strong on raising your taxes. He’s terrible for property owners.”
Even then, what Conway did wouldn’t have been a violation of the Hatch Act, except that she appeared on the program under her title as a White House adviser and answered questions about White House policy in addition to making a public, direct attack on a political candidate. That is exactly the sort of thing that a restricted federal employee can’t do, and there’s really only one reason Conway isn’t facing charges.
In short, the case against Conway is airtight. Or it would be, that is, if President Trump hadn’t appointed [Henry] Kerner to lead the OSC.
Like all good Trump employees, Kerner came to the Office of Government Ethics by previously helming a conservative group out to destroy government ethics. In particular, he worked to uncover whistle-blowers and out them in public.
So don’t be surprised if Kerner decides that two people, speaking in private, is a lock ‘em up moment. Because Republicans are convinced the law is what they say it is … and because all of this is only about demeaning and detracting from Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s Russia connections.