White House aide Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act when she told Alabama voters not to support Democratic Senate candidate Doug Jones in Alabama, according to the former director of the Office of Government Ethics.
In a Washington Post op-ed, Walter Shaub, who has frequently criticized Trump officials over ethical matters, writes that Conway inappropriately used her position to influence the Alabama special election, which is just weeks away.
“That law prohibits executive branch employees from using their government positions to influence elections, which is precisely what presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway did last week,” Shaub writes. “Whether [Office of Special Counsel chief Henry] Kerner will enforce the law is another matter.”
Shaub writes that Conway was not “innocently championing the president’s agenda,” as she says, but rather seeking to concretely influence the election in favor of Roy Moore (R), the embattled candidate accused of sexually assaulting underage girls by multiple women after a Washington Post investigation.