How Biden’s reelection campaign could allow White House to dodge more questions
Haisten Willis
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The Hatch Act is drawing renewed attention now that President Joe Biden is officially running for reelection.
The act prohibits government employees from engaging in overt political campaigning and has tripped up many previous administrations. But the Biden White House may be the first to face accusations of using it too much.
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“This is an administration and a president that believes in the rule of law,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the day Biden announced his reelection bid. “You’ve heard me over the past couple of weeks and months, probably painfully so, trying to make sure that we respect the rule of law and not to break the Hatch Act.”
For reporters covering the administration, it has indeed been painful at times.
On April 21, there were three different exchanges where the act was mentioned. In the first, the reporter said the question was about the Hatch Act itself and whether or not Biden would try to separate his job as president from his job as a candidate.
“I don’t have anything to share on anything that’s related to 2024,” Jean-Pierre said.
In the second, the reporter began by explaining that it was “not a Hatch Act-type question” being asked. Jean-Pierre responded by saying with a laugh, “that’s what you think.” After a lengthy back-and-forth with the reporter, she refused to directly answer the question, which was about how much Biden pays attention to former President Donald Trump.
“As you just laid out yourself, [Trump] is a candidate for 2024,” she said. “And you’re specifically talking about what could potentially happen in that race. And I’m just not going to speak to it.”
And in the third, a reporter asked Jean-Pierre if she had violated the Hatch Act by talking about Trump in the past, to which she replied, “absolutely not.”
The press corps has been frustrated by the act plenty of times before, but the confusion has ramped up now that the White House is starting to peel off staff to fulfill campaign duties.
The administration also frequently takes partisan shots at Trump and “MAGA” Republicans, such as dubbing the House’s Limit, Save, Grow Act the “Default on America Act” last week.
The key distinction, argues former White House chief ethics lawyer Richard Painter, is whether Jean-Pierre is talking about a current candidate for president.
“If she wants to talk about the Trump administration having a different policy, that’s fine,” said Painter, who served in the George W. Bush White House. “She can refer to the Trump administration in the past and talk about Republicans, although calling them MAGA Republicans is a bit excessive.”
Jean-Pierre has in the past cited the Hatch Act in refusing to answer questions about Biden’s travel schedule, his messaging on inflation, and even whether or not he would return campaign contributions from FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried.
“If it’s about the election, she should say Hatch Act,” Painter added. “If the question is if he’s on a trip, on Air Force One, that the American taxpayer is paying for, we should be told where he’s going.”
The Hatch Act issue is magnified by the fact that Biden rarely speaks to the press. The act only covers employees, so Biden himself would be free of it, but he’s held fewer press conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan.
Still, some ethics experts compare Biden’s approach favorably with that of his predecessor.
A 2021 report from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel alleged that 13 separate members of the Trump administration violated the act by campaigning on Trump’s behalf.
Trump-era counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway may be the most infamous violator, saying that the Hatch Act would not “silence me” and adding, “Let me know when the jail sentence starts.”
“While I can’t necessarily defend every refusal to answer the questions posed, and I can certainly appreciate the frustration of reporters, I feel like the memory is still fresh of the last administration’s egregious disregard of the Hatch Act and its decision to hold a national nominating convention at the White House,” Walter Shaub, of the Project On Government Oversight, said. “So I’d rather see folks err on the side of caution.”
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While the Biden team has been notoriously slow in reporting and reacting to news events, Shaub argues that sometimes less is more.
“Admittedly, the White House has not always been as forthcoming as it should be, as in the case of the failure to tell the public about the classified records found in the president’s position or the subsequent failure to publicly disclose that the records were found in more than one location,” he said, “but I really do not want to see a White House spokesperson criticizing the candidacy of Donald Trump or any other candidate.”