The chair of the House Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday called for an investigation into whether Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf broke the law and politicized his position in government.
How many divisions does the Pope have?
-Josef Stalin
The especially galling thing about that display is that there are thousands of people who have completed all of the requirements to become American citizens but who have not been allowed to go through the ceremony. They are using COVID as the excuse, but in reality they have delayed citizenship proceedings because they worry all of these new immigrants will vote against Republicans. Added to the huge pile of anti-immigrant actions by the Trump administration since the day it took office, and the entire thing just stinks.
Do they mean “illegally appointed” Acting DHS Secretary Chad Wolf?
With this much Hatch … maybe someone will get burned.
There are going to be a lot of records to shred. Or simply to refuse to produce.
This is why Biden needs a trump administration crime task force as a separate agency to just go through everything. Maybe he could appoint a czar…
who is also…wait for it…unqualified for his current position. And unless it’s a spokesperson job, then any position in government.
Or just a drone over a golf course.
I don’t think there’s been enough discussion I the media about how disturbing this ceremony really was in how it showed Trump at his authoritarian, even monarchical worst. It suggested that citizenship is a “gift” bestowed by the President, not the end of a neutral process. And of course it was all about power and domination. Here were immigrants under the bright lights of the camera having to display their appreciation. Becoming a citizen doesn’t mean discarding one’s right to free speech or to freely vote for the leaders of your choice or be critical of them before or after they become a citizen. One shouldn’t have to demonstrate their preference for the current President or their policies as the fee for citizenship.
A Hatch Act violation? Oh shit, you can bet they’ll be terrified at the maximum possible penalty of a $1000 fine and not getting to work for the federal government for five years. Oh, and the president and VP are not covered by it at all.
Also, how did they choose who got to be in the ceremony? Were they quizzed, “Do you support Trump?” And if they didn’t, would their citizenship ceremony been delayed or deferred? This seems like the far more scandalous, even illegal aspect of this.
“More than you might think.”
–Poland, circa 1989
GOP: “Nobody cares that the president broke the law!”
Also GOP: “He’s the president of law and order.”
It’s understandable that a president will do things in the normal scope of their work that will be later used for campaign purposes. Such as appearing at a citizenship ceremony. As much as I dislike this president, I find the angst over this ceremony a misdirection of energy that could be better channeled toward, say, voter registration and insuring a fair election process.
Literally they will use the fact that Wolf is not legally appointed to say he is not legally bound by Hatch act…
You heard it here first folks
To some extent there’s a finite amount of attention and energy left before the election, but it’s not necessarily a zero-sum thing. Using the trappings of the office to paint himself as presidential in campaigning is one more wildly unethical and corrupt thing this cesspool of a president has done, and it all should at least be noted for the record. Not everyone is jaded or burned out about it all.
trump has been using federal money to prop up campaign events for pretty much his entire term. Lots of “official” speeches that were actually re-election rallies, lots of trips with some fig leaf official cover but whose actual purpose was fund-raising. This is just one more of those. Only they had to get those people in to the white house, so there will be a paper trail.
The line starts somewhere down there, I think…can’t quite make it out from here.
And then use it as precedent for Giuliani.