White House chief of staff Mark Meadows defended Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s decision to deliver a convention speech on an official trip, saying concerns about potential Hatch Act violations were overblown and that “nobody outside the Beltway really cares.”
“What it’s really designed to do is to make sure that people like myself and others do not use their political position to try to convince other employees, other federal employees that they need to vote one way, register one way or campaign another way. We have taken it well beyond the original intent of the Hatch Act,” Meadows said on Politico’s “Plug in with Playbook” Wednesday morning when asked about the controversy surrounding Pompeo’s speech at the Republican National Convention the evening prior.
“As he was there, he made it very clear he was talking in his personal capacity, used no federal assets to do that,” Meadows continued.
Meadows went on to argue that no one outside Washington, D.C., would devote attention to controversies about how Trump has pushed the boundaries of rules regarding the mix of governing and political activity during the 2020 convention.
“Nobody outside really cares,” Meadows said, referencing a passage in the Politico Playbook newsletter that doubted whether voters outside the Beltway would care about flouting of norms or Hatch Act violations with respect to the convention.
“They expect that Donald Trump is going to promote Republican values and they would expect Barack Obama when he was in office, that he would do the same for Democrats,” Meadows continued. “Listen, this is a lot of hoopla that’s being made about things mainly because the convention has been so unbelievably successful.”
The Hatch Act broadly prohibits federal employees, including White House staffers, from engaging in partisan political activity. The president and vice president are each exempt from the law.
Pompeo’s speech — filmed from Jerusalem during an official trip to the Middle East — was one of multiple elements of Tuesday’s program that blurred the lines between governing and partisan political activity. Secretaries of State and Defense traditionally avoid speeches during political conventions.
Trump also granted a pardon to a convicted bank robber and participated in a naturalization ceremony that featured Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Chad Wolf at the White House in videos displayed at the convention. And first lady Melania Trump delivered her keynote address casting Trump as a champion of women and American families from the White House Rose Garden.
Pompeo’s speech specifically came under intense scrutiny from Democrats and former State Department officials leading up to its delivery. A Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs committee announced Tuesday that he would pursue an investigation into the legality of the remarks and what State Department resources and taxpayer funds were used surrounding them.
Meadows also noted Wednesday that the coronavirus was a reason for the change in setting for this year’s convention. Trump, who originally planned to deliver his acceptance speech Thursday from Jacksonville, Fla., was forced to cancel the events in the Sunshine State last month and made the decision to give his remarks from the White House grounds.