Office of Special Counsel Issues Unprecedented Recommendation to Remove Kellyanne Conway for "Egregious, Notorious, and Ongoing" Hatch Act Violations

The U.S. Office of Special Counsel issued an extraordinary recommendation that White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway be removed from federal service for repeated Hatch Act violations, calling her conduct “egregious, notorious, and ongoing.” Special Counsel Henry Kerner, himself a Trump appointee, stated the recommendation was “unprecedented” for a political appointee of Conway’s stature, documenting dozens of violations where Conway used her official position to disparage Democratic presidential candidates during television interviews and on social media despite previous warnings.

Background

Following the March 2018 disciplinary recommendation that Trump ignored, Conway continued violating the Hatch Act with impunity. The OSC investigation documented at least 25 separate violations during television appearances and through her official Twitter account, where Conway repeatedly attacked Democratic presidential candidates and promoted Trump’s reelection campaign while acting in her official capacity. Ethics watchdog CREW documented over 50 violations on Twitter alone when including subsequent conduct.

Conway’s defiance became brazen after the initial warning went unenforced. When confronted about potential Hatch Act violations in May 2019, Conway dismissed the concerns with “Blah, blah, blah” and added, “If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts.” This public contempt for federal ethics law came from one of the most senior officials in the White House.

The OSC found Conway to be a “repeat offender” who showed no intention of complying with the law. Her violations included using television interviews where she identified herself as a White House official to attack Joe Biden, Beto O’Rourke, Cory Booker, and other Democratic candidates, as well as promoting Trump’s reelection—all explicitly prohibited activities under the Hatch Act.

Significance

This marked the first time in U.S. history that the Office of Special Counsel recommended removing a senior White House official from federal service for Hatch Act violations. The unprecedented nature of the recommendation reflected both the severity and persistence of Conway’s lawbreaking. Trump immediately rejected the recommendation, telling Fox and Friends “I’m not gonna fire her” and falsely claiming the OSC was “trying to take away her right of free speech.”

The episode definitively established that the Hatch Act was unenforceable for White House staff when a president refused to act. OSC had no independent enforcement authority beyond making recommendations to the president, creating a structural flaw that Trump exploited systematically. Conway’s continued employment despite an official finding of “egregious, notorious, and ongoing” violations sent a clear message throughout the federal government: ethics laws were optional for Trump loyalists.

This failure to enforce the law against Conway emboldened the administration’s subsequent mass Hatch Act violations during the 2020 Republican National Convention, where the White House was used as a campaign backdrop and multiple senior officials violated federal law with total impunity. The Conway case became the definitive example of how Trump’s refusal to uphold his constitutional duty to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed” undermined the rule of law itself.