ETHICS/KELLYANNE CONWAY/TRUMP PEOPLE: “The United States Office of Special Counsel issued a report on Thursday [6-13-19] recommending that Kellyanne Conway, an aide to President Trump who frequently defends him on television, be fired for ‘persistent, notorious and deliberate Hatch Act violations.’ President Trump said on Friday [6-14-19] that he would not comply. ‘No, I’m not going to fire her,’ he told Fox News. On Thursday, the White House counsel, Pat A. Cipollone, had shot back in a letter that the Office of Special Counsel’s conclusions about Ms. Conway were based on ‘numerous grave, legal, factual and procedural errors.’ Here is what you need to know to make sense of the dispute. What does the law mean? The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job. Named for former Senator Carl A. Hatch, Democrat of New Mexico, the law has been on the books for 80 years.”
–Neil Vigdor and Charlie Savage, “What Is the Hatch Act? Explaining Why Trump Was Urged to Fire Kellyanne Conway,” The New York Times online, June 13, 2019