KellyAnne Conway may finally have gone too far. Her attacks last week on Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones, the Democratic opponent of Republican alleged child molester Roy Moore, brought on charges that her politically motivated rant was a violation of the Hatch Act which prevents executive branch employees from engaging in partisan political activities as part of their official duties.
Now, The Hill is reporting that Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller’s office is opening up a case file to investigate the matter. The former director of the Office of Government Ethics under President Obama, Walter Shaub, filed a complaint against Conway with Mueller’s office last week after the White House defended her diatribe against Jones by claiming that her comments on Jones were merely part of her supporting the President’s agenda.
“Ms. Conway did not advocate for or against the election of a candidate, and specifically declined to encourage Alabamans to vote a certain way,” Raj Shah, the White House principal deputy press secretary, said in a statement.
“She was speaking about issues and her support for the President’s agenda. This election is for the people of Alabama to decide.”
The former Ethics Chief Shaub explained on Twitter what he thought of that excuse:
WH defended Conway against @CampaignLegal’s Hatch Act complaint by saying her words about Jones supported POTUS’s agenda. That’s an admission of guilt! Jones’ only relevance to POTUS is his bid for Senate, and the topic was: Does POTUS have the votes in the Senate for a tax bill. pic.twitter.com/s5GJmiru5i
— Walter Shaub (@waltshaub) November 29, 2017
Having successfully brought the Special Prosecutor’s attention to yet another flagrant violation of federal law by a Trump administration senior advisor, Shaub has shown that, even after resigning his seat as director of the agency policing ethics violations in protest over the refusal of the executive branch to hand over copies of the ethics waivers it had issued to former-lobbyists joining the administration, he can still effectively pressure the administration over its misdeeds from his seat in the civilian world.
The addition of Conway’s Hatch Act violation to the litany of issues being probed by Mueller and his associates means that the grand juries will be extremely busy in the weeks and months ahead. Hopefully, Santa will be bringing indictments before the holidays.
