President Donald Trump’s social media director Dan Scavino is under fire for sending a tweet over the weekend that called for the primary-election defeat of Michigan GOP congressman John Amash, a member of the so-called Freedom Caucus group that the President implied he might go after during the 2018 midterm elections if they did not support his attempt to overhaul healthcare.
The reason why the tweet is so controversial is that some see it as a violation of the Hatch Act, which generally prohibits civilian officers and employees in the Executive Branch from “using their official authority or influence to interfere with an election.” Though they are free to express their opinions privately and participate in the political process as citizens, they cannot participate in or advocate for partisan political activities while they're on the clock, on federal property, in a government vehicle or wearing anything that identifies them as a federal employee. This is not the first time the Hatch Act has made news in recent memory.
Former White House ethics lawyers Daniel Jacobson and Richard W. Painter, who worked in the administrations of Barack Obama and George W. Bush, respectively, argued in response to the tweet that Scavino's Twitter avatar was a photo of him in the White House and that his bio at the time identified him as a federal employee, which may mean that his statement would still fall under the law's scope. However, ABC News quoted an unnamed White House official arguing that the tweet is not a violation of the act because it came from Scavino's personal account.