FCC Commissioner Broke the Law By Advocating for Trump, Officials Find (theverge.com)

A newly released letter from government officials finds that Republican FCC commissioner Michael O'Reilly broke a federal law preventing officials from advocating for political candidates when he told a crowd that one way to avoid policy changes was to "make sure that President Trump gets reelected." The Verge reports: After he made the comments, the watchdog group American Oversight filed a letter with the Office of Special Counsel, which handles Hatch Act complaints. In response to the group's letter, the Office of Special Counsel said today that O'Rielly did, in fact, violate the Hatch Act. The letter said O'Rielly responded that he was only trying to provide an explanatory answer to how those changes in policy could be stopped, but the office rejected that reasoning. The office said it has sent a warning letter to O'Rielly this time, but will consider other infractions "a willful and knowing violation of the law" that could lead to legal action.

Comments

Re:Somebody doesn't seem to know the law of the po

[Nemyst]

I'm sure we're both reading the same Wikipedia page rather than the actual Act, which conveniently summarizes activities which are allowed and disallowed depending on their level of restriction. Your quoted exemption is only for additional restrictions. All federal employees are still affected by the Hatch Act, the only difference is to which extent. Specifically, even employees not covered by the more restrictive policies still may not:

• - use official authority or influence to interfere with an election
• ...
• - engage in political activity while:
  • - on duty
  • - in a government office
  • - wearing an official uniform
  • - using a government vehicle

Both of these points are applicable to the statement O'Reilly made. Funny how the office tasked with enforcing the Act would know more about it than a random Slashdotter, eh?

Re:Well let's step through it section-by-section

[Frank Burly]

I appreciate that you took the time to do this, but the OSC's letter is pretty clear. Mr. O'Reilly is an employee of an Executive Agency, and made an appearance at CPAC as an FCC commissioner where he endorsed Trump for re-election, and thereby violated 7323(1)(1) by"use[ing] his official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election."

7322 definitions, nothing interesting

I think your problem started with skipping 7322, which defines "employee" in a way that includes Mr. O'Reilly. Exception 7323(2)(A) does not apply because Mr. O'Reilly was not working as a campaign manager. 7324 is not the cited violation, so the exceptions are irrelevant. (The distinction between "official authority" (7323) and "on duty" (7324) is also relevant.)