XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, sac.politics, talk.politics.guns
XPost: alt.politics.media

White House press secretary Jen Psaki may have violated a law
barring executive branch employees from partisan politicking, a
government ethics watchdog said Friday.

But the group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, also said that Psaki�s alleged breach of the Hatch
Act was nowhere near as egregious as the mountain of similar
ethics complaints that piled up during former President Donald
Trump�s administration.

CREW alleged in a complaint that Psaki violated the ethics law
Thursday during a press briefing when she affirmed President Joe
Biden�s support for Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate
Terry McAuliffe.

�I have to be a little careful about how much political analysis
I do from here,� Psaki said before noting that Biden �of course�
wants McAuliffe �to be the future governor of Virginia.�

�We�re going to do everything we can to help� McAuliffe, Psaki
said, �and we believe in the agenda he�s representing.�

The complaint, filed to Henry Kerner of the Office of Special
Counsel, alleged that Psaki appeared to violate the Hatch Act by
�impermissibly mixing official government business with advocacy
for former Governor McAuliffe�s election.� Her remarks were made
in her official capacity and they were aimed at a preferred
outcome in a partisan political election, the complaint said.

The complaint called on Kerner to investigate and take �any
appropriate disciplinary action� against Psaki.

�While the President has publicly expressed his support for
McAuliffe, we�ll leave it to the press and the campaign to
provide commentary on the race,� Psaki told CNBC in an email.

�I take ethics very seriously and will choose my words more
carefully moving forward,� she said.

CREW President Noah Bookbinder, who authored the complaint,
noted in a press release that Psaki�s conduct �does not come
close to rising to the level of the outrageous offenses of the
Trump administration,� which �systematically co-opted the
government for the president�s reelection.�

The ethics group filed Hatch Act complaints against numerous
Trump administration officials, including two press secretaries,
Kayleigh McEnany and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as well as then-
communications aides Raj Shah and Hogan Gidley.

CREW said its complaints led to reprimands against at least a
dozen Trump administration officials, including former Trump
advisors Kellyanne Conway and Peter Navarro, former United
Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley and Trump�s third press
secretary, Stephanie Grisham.

The Office of Special Counsel in 2019 issued a scathing report
recommending Conway in particular should be fired for her
repeated Hatch Act violations. But Trump shrugged off the
report, claiming in a Fox News interview that �it looks to me
like they�re trying to take away her right of free speech.�

The Trump administration�s abuse of the Hatch Act �does not mean
we should be casual about compliance with an important ethics
law� under Biden, Bookbinder said. �The Biden administration
should not follow the Trump administration down that path.�

�After the ethics disaster of the Trump administration, there is
extra pressure on the Biden administration to be above board,�
Bookbinder said. �We hope the Biden administration will give
renewed attention to staying on the right side of this law.�

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/15/biden-press-secretary-jen-psaki- may-have-violated-hatch-act-watchdog-says.html

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)