President Biden’s Chief of Staff Ron Klain violated the Hatch Act, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel has found following a probe prompted by the Trump-aligned America First Legal Foundation.
The chief of the OSC’s Hatch Act unit, Ana Galindo-Marrone, says Mr. Klain ran afoul of the law barring federal employees from participating in political activity while acting in an official capacity, in a May post from his official Twitter account. In that post, Mr. Klain encouraged people to purchase “Democrats Deliver” merchandise benefitting the Democrats’ Strike PAC.
The OSC has issued Mr. Klain a warning for the violation but decided against pursuing disciplinary action.
“Although OSC has concluded that Mr. Klain violated the Hatch Act, we understand that he promptly removed the retweet upon being notified of this complaint,” Ms. Galindo-Marrone said in a letter Wednesday to the America First Legal Foundation’s vice president and general counsel. “Accordingly, we have decided not to pursue disciplinary action and will close this matter.”
The America First Legal Counsel reported the May Twitter post to the Office of Government Ethics in June.
The post was a retweet from the group Strike PAC promoting Mr. Biden’s Operation Fly Formula initiative, created in response to the widespread shortage of infant formula over the spring.
“Operation Fly Formula delivers 70,000 pounds of infant formula for American mothers and their infants. Thank you @POTUS,” the post read followed by a prompt to “Get your Democrats Deliver merchandise today!”
The post included a link to the PAC’s online store and an image of the group’s “Democrats Deliver” T-shirt.
“Many Americans will recall that during the Trump Administration in 2018, Ron Klain tweeted that ‘using your WH title in a press release advocating the President’s reelection is ILLEGAL,’ suggesting he is versed in the Hatch Act,” said America First Legal Vice President and General Counsel Gene Hamilton about the OSC decision.
“Thanks to America First Legal’s rapid request for investigation, OSC has concluded that Ron Klain violated the Hatch Act, and has issued Klain a warning letter for illegally using his White House Twitter account to solicit donations for partisan entities,” he said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre acknowledged the lapse Thursday, said Mr. Klain “takes the Hatch Act very seriously,” and took a shot at the administration of former President Trump.
“He got it wrong this time,” Ms. Jean-Pierre told reporters but added that Mr. Klain deleted the tweet when the violation was brought to his attention. She also said Mr. Klain takes the OSC’s warning seriously.
“That’s very different than the prior crew at the White House previously, that blatantly, openly and carelessly violated the Hatch Act repeatedly,” she claimed. “We are not perfect, but our violations have been few.”
• Joseph Clark can be reached at jclark@washingtontimes.com.
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