ETHICS/GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Trump’s social media director, Dan Scavino Jr., posted a message on his government Twitter account calling for the defeat of a Republican congressman who had angered the president.
His West Wing counselor, Kellyanne Conway, weighed in on the Alabama Senate race during television interviews from the White House lawn. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, used his White House title on a news release for Mr. Trump’s re-election bid. All had complaints filed against them alleging violations of the Hatch Act, the federal law that since 1939 has barred government officials from using their positions to engage in partisan politics.
Over the past 14 months there have been at least eight complaints against White House officials for potential violations of the statute, according to a review by the agency charged with enforcing it. That number has put the Trump White House on a pace to far surpass the complaints against the staff of his predecessor.
A handful of high-profile violations and the increased number of complaints suggest that, more than a year after taking office, Mr. Trump — who has openly defied many norms of government ethics and transparency — is surrounded by aides who blur the line between their roles as partisans and public servants, sometimes skirting or disregarding altogether decades-old standards that govern the behavior of senior White House officials.”
-Julie Hirschfeld Davis, “White House Aides Blur the Legal Lines Between Partisans and Public Servants,” The New York Times online, Mar. 12, 2018