THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON

June 11, 2019
The Honorable Henry Kerner
United States Office of Special Counsel
1730 M Street, NW, Suite 218
Washington, DC 20036
Dear Special Counsel Kerner:
I write to submit an initial response to the draft Office of Special Counsel Rep01t
concerning Assistant to the President and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway, OSC File
Nos. HA-19-0631 & HA-19-3395, dated May 30, 2019 ("Repo1t"). OSC's draft Report is based
on multiple fundamental legal and factual errors, makes unfair and unsupported claims against a
close adviser to the President, is the product of a blatantly unfair process that ignored statutory
notice requirements, and has been influenced by various inappropriate considerations. As a result,
the cun-ent Report would serve only to undermine public confidence in OSC and its procedures.
At 5:00 pm on May 29, 2019, OSC provided the White House with a 17-page report raising
numerous unsubstantiated allegations spanning many months, many of which had never been
raised by OSC through the appropriate procedure. OSC then demanded a response by 9:00 a.m.
the following morning. As you later acknowledged, OSC's actions were prompted by your desire
to respond to press questions concerning a media report that day about comments that Ms. Conway
had allegedly made and by the purported personal "offense" that you took to those comments­
even though you made no eff01t to investigate before rushing to judgment. OSC's patently
umeasonable demand for an overnight response, standing alone, shows that the Report was the
product of a fatally flawed process.
Indeed, the Report is based on numerous grave legal, factual, and procedural en-ors. First,
even assuming that the Hatch Act applies to the most senior advisers to the President in the White
House, OSC has violated its statutory obligation to provide Ms. Conway a reasonable opportunity
to respond, violated Ms. Conway's due process rights, and abused its discretion by issuing a Report
tainted by inappropriate external influences. Second, OSC's overbroad and unsupported
interpretation of the Hatch Act risks violating Ms. Conway's First Amendment rights and chills
the free speech of all government employees. In fact, OSC has no legal authority to promulgate
guidance on social media use that it treats effectively as binding rules in order to enforce its
overbroad interpretation of the Act. Third, contrary to your letter, Ms. Conway's Twitter account
and her media appearances do not violate even the standards used by OSC itself. Worst of all,
OSC's "call" upon the President "to remove Ms·. Conway from her federal position immediately"
is as outrageous as it is unprecedented. OSC's oven-eaching recommendation is wholly
unsupported by any statute or the Constitution. Additionally, it appears that OSC has not been
applying its vague standards evenhandedly across Democratic and Republican administrations.

 Hon. Hemy Kerner
Page 2
The White House takes seriously the principles codified in the Hatch Act and has continued
to take affirmative steps to ensure compliance. At the same time, the White House must ensure
that OSC exercises its significant authority in an appropriate and neutral manner. We also have a
duty to safeguard the fundamental constitutional rights of not only White House employees, but
all employees within the Executive Branch. Based on the numerous errors in the Report and the
flawed process under which it was issued, we ask that you withdraw and retract the Report and
continue the dialogue with this office that should have taken place and that could have avoided
many of the errors in the current draft.
If you choose not to withdraw the Report, we will need additional information to prepare
our full response. We ask that you provide this information, detailed below, by June 21, 2019. At
a minimum, in fairness to Ms. Conway, release of the draft Report should wait until we have had
the oppmiunity to provide a final response and OSC has had an oppotiunity to fully consider that
response. You have assured us several times that you will review our response and incorporate it,
provide whatever additional process is necessary, meet with us to discuss these matters, and refrain
from a futiher rush to judgment.
Please contact us after you have reviewed this letter to discuss next steps, including whether
you will withdraw the Repmi and, if not, when you will provide the information we request. I also
ask that we meet as soon as possible and no later than June 26, 2019, to discuss the concerns raised
in this letter.
I.

OSC's Investigation And Conclusions Are Tainted By Lack of Due Process
and Inappropriate External Influence.

The lack of due process that OSC provided in preparing this Report indicates a complete
disregard for the fundamental rights of individuals serving in the Executive Branch and raises
serious concerns regarding OSC's current investigatory practices. On May 29, 2019, at 5:03 pm,
Ms. Ana Galindo-Marrone, Chief of the OSC Hatch Act Unit, sent the Report to the White House's
Designated Ethics Official. After providing the Report, Ms. Galindo-Marrone requested any
comments by 9:00 ant the following morning (May 30), providing less than 16 hours overnight to
respond to a 17-page report containing over a dozen allegations, spanning across more than 8
months. OSC had never before infonned the White House or Ms. Conway that it was investigating
many of the specific allegations in the Report. Moreover, when the White House first received the
Report on May 29, OSC had already post-dated the Report to May 30, 2019-the date by which
OSC had requested comments from the White House-indicating that OSC had no actual interest
in conducting futiher investigation or analysis, regardless of any comments received from the
White House or Ms. Conway. OSC's patently umeasonable demand for an overnight response to
a repmi that had been months in the making failed to provide basic due process and also conflicted
with the express statutory command that OSC is generally required to provide employees "a
reasonable time to answer orally and in writing." 5 U.S.C. § 1215(a)(2)(A); see also Schroder v.
City of New York, 371 U.S. 208, 211 (1962) (describing "notice" as "[a]n elementaiy and
fundantental requirement of due process").

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The White House had been actively engaging with OSC in a productive dialogue when
OSC unilaterally, without notice, terminated those discussions by sending the Report to the White
House, making the draconian and patently ridiculous recommendation that the President remove
one of his closest advisers. OSC's position appears to be that this unilateral termination was
justifiable because OSC had provided notice of each allegation contained in the Report. This is
false. Not only did OSC fail to provide notice of each allegation, it also abruptly terminated,
without explanation, a good faith dialogue with our office.
Officials from this office met with officials from your office on March 19 and then again
on March 28, 2019. During these meetings, your issues relating to Ms. Conway focused on her
use of Twitter, and we responded at the time by raising our legal and factual objections to your
initial concerns. Your April 9, 2019 letter in response failed adequately to address our primary
legal objection-that OSC has no authority to issue any regulation or binding guidance relating to
social media use. See Letter from Ana Galindo-Marrone, Chief of Hatch Act Unit, to Michael M.
Purpura, Deputy Counsel to the President (April 9, 2019) (discussing only OSC's authority to issue
"advisory opinions"). Merely stating that OSC issued its social media guidance "[p]ursuant to our
statutory authority"-without citing any statutory provision-is not a meaningful response. Id. at
1. As to her media appearances, although you raised questions about some of Ms. Conway's
television appearances generally, you did not provide precise information about the specific media
appearances addressed in the draft Report and stated that OSC had not received any formal
complaints about media appearances. Notably, OSC's April 9 Jetter makes no mention of any
media appearances by Ms. Conway. Id.
Faced with the stubborn truth that OSC failed to provide notice as to each allegation in the
Report, OSC appears to suggest that, because it had previously contacted Ms. Conway and opined
on potential Hatch Act violations in other contexts, she has been put on notice as to any and all
allegations of Hatch Act violations that might arise. Of course, due process demands far more. If
OSC received a formal complaint about each of the allegations in the Report, then the appropriate
next step would have been to notify White House ethics officials, with whom OSC works on a
regular basis, as well as Ms. Conway, regarding the full scope of these complaints in order to
continue our ongoing dialogue. Rather than seeking a productive dialogue with the aim of
achieving a resolution, however, OSC sent the post-dated Report, asldng for comment overnight,
with the clear implication that it was not genuinely interested in receiving or considering any
response. This is certainly not due process and it is not a fair opportunity to respond.
OSC's hasty decision to finalize and send this Report is particularly troubling because, by
OSC's own admission, it was prompted by inappropriate external influences that should have no
bearing on the work of "an independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency." Office of
Special Counsel, "What We Do." available at https://osc.gov/Pages/WhatWeDo.aspx. OSC
aclmowledges that its practice in the past has been to provide notice concerning specific allegations
and to engage in discussions to reconcile differences in our interpretation of the law and application
of the law to the facts. Here, by contrast, OSC has acknowledged that its decision to rush the
Report out the door without the usual process was a reaction to a media report on the morning of
May 29 regarding a passing comment by Ms. Conway-a comment that is not itself alleged to be
a Hatch Act violation. After admitting that OSC relied solely on the media report to assess Ms.
Conway's comment, you specifically said that the Office had to act quickly because it had been

3

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Page 4
receiving press inquiries and had to be mindful of interest from politicians outside of the Office.
This is deeply troubling. As an independent federal agency, OSC has a duty both to remain
impartial and to maintain both the appearance and the reality of remaining impervious to external
political and media influence. D.C. Fed'n of Civic Assn's v. Volpe, 459 F.2d 1231, 1246 (D.C.
Cir. 1971) (reversing a decision of the Secretary of Transportation upon finding "extraneous
pressure inttuded into the calculus of considerations on which the Secretary's decision was based");
ATX Inc. v. US. Dep't ofTransp., 41 F.3d 1522, 1528 (D.C. Cir. 1994)("We are concerned when
congressional influence shapes the agency's determination of the merits."); Aera Energy LLC v.
Salazar, 642 F.3d 212,220 (D.C. Cir. 2011) ("[P]olitical pressure invalidates agency action only
when it shapes, in whole or in part, the judgment of the ultimate agency decisionmaker.").
The most alarming fact is that personal pique appears to have influenced the outcome of
this investigation, including the decision to make the extraordinary recommendation that the
President remove one of his closest advisors. The first paragraph of the Repmt focuses exclusively
on Ms. Conway's comment as repmted earlier on the morning of May 29 and bases the decision
to recommend termination on that comment. After OSC sent the Report to the White House,
representatives of this office spoke with you on the phone regarding your unreasonable request to
receive a response overnight. While explaining why OSC needed a response overnight, you
explained that, not only did you feel a strong external pressure to release the Report, but that you
also personally "took great offense" to Ms. Conway's comment and repeatedly complained about
the level of "disrespect" towards OSC that you perceived in that comment. OSC again made no
effort to reach out to the White House to verify Ms. Conway's repmted comment or seek any
clarifying or contextual information from Ms. Conway before sending the Report. Setting aside
the reality that Ms. Conway's comment was taken out of context, the fact that personal bias and
the desire to respond to a media article apparently prompted the decision to release the Report
seven hours later eviscerates the credibility of the Report, including its conclusions and
unprecedented and unwan-anted recommendation.
II.

OSC's Overbroad and Unsupported Interpretation of the Hatch Act Likely
Violates First Amendment Rights.
A. Statutory text and implementing regulations are binding.

The text of the Hatch Act makes clear that any limitation on a federal government
employee's political speech should be nan-owly construed and based on express prohibitions. The
Hatch Act begins by declaring: "It is the policy of the Congress that employees should be
encouraged to exercise fully, freely,and withoutfear ofpenalty or reprisal, and to the extent not
expressly prohibited by law, their right to patticipate or to refrain from participating in the political
processes of the Nation." 5 U.S.C. § 7321 (emphasis added). The Act also makes cleat·that "[a]n
employee retains the right . .. to express his opinion on political subjects and candidates." 5 U.S.C.
§ 7323(c). Consistent with the text of the statute, the Supreme Court has explained that "the Hatch
Act aimed to protect employees' rights,notably their right to free expression, rather than to restrict
those rights." United States v. Nat'l Treasury Employees Union, 513 U.S. 454,471 (1995).
Accordingly, the Hatch Act's prohibitions are limited. The Act prohibits, among other
things, a federal employee from using "his official authority or influence for the purpose of
4

 Hon. Remy Kerner
Page 5
interfering with or affecting the result of an election." 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a). Further, the Act
prohibits an employee from engaging in "political activity" under specific circumstances. 5 U.S.C.
§ 7324(a). "Political activity," as defined by regulation, is "an activity directed toward the success
or failure of a political party, candidate for pmiisan political office, or partisan political group." 5
C.F.R. § 734.101. Neither the statute nor any implementing regulations specifically addresses
many of the allegations at issue here.
B. OSC's guidance was issued without statutory authority and cannot be
treated as binding.

In the absence of specific guidance on social media accounts in the statute or implementing
regulations, OSC has attempted to unilaterally impose its overbroad social media guidance as
binding authority. The Hatch Act does not specifically address activities on social media. Nor has
the Office of Personnel Management ("OPM")-the entity with the authority to issue "regulations
describing the political activities which are permitted and prohibited under the Hatch Act"­
specifically addressed social media use in its regulations. See 5 C.F.R. § 734.102. In the absence
of statutory or regulatory language, OSC issued its own purported "rules" governing social media
use in February 2018. See Office of Special Counsel, "Hatch Act Guidance on Social Media"
(Feb. 2018) (containing nineteen separate "rules" that limit employees' social media use). 1
OSC has no authority to issue binding rules that effectively function as Hatch Act
regulations, particularly when those rules significantly restrict employees' First Amendment
rights. On March 28, 2019, the White House raised its concern about OSC's lack of authority to
promulgate such rules as well as the lack of transparency as to how it created these rules. None of
the rules outlined in the social media guidance was subject to public notice and comment under
the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 553. Instead, it appears that these rules were subject
only to an internal process within OSC involving OSC's own employees.
OSC acknowledged in its April 9, 2019, letter that it "has authority to issue advisory
opinions," but did not address the distinction between issuing advisory opinions concerning the
applicability of 5 C.F.R. part 734 to patiicular facts (as OSC is authorized to do in 5 C.F.R.
§ 734.102(a)) and issuing "regulations describing the political activities which are pernutted and
prohibited under the Hatch Act," which is the proper purview of OPM, as clearly stated in 5 C.F.R.
§ 734.102(c). OSC's effort to promulgate so-called "rules" concerning social media exceeds
OSC's statutory authority and improperly usurped the authority of OPM.2
This issue was addressed by the Depmiment of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel ("OLC")
in a February 2, 1994 opinion for OSC's Deputy Special Counsel. Authority for Issuing Hatch Act
Regulations, 18 Op. O.L.C. I (1994). In that opinion, OLC examined whether OSC or OPM had
the authority to promulgate regulations delimiting the scope of impermissible political activities
under the Hatch Act Reform Amendments of 1993. After a review of precedent, the statutes
outlining the responsibilities of OPM and OSC under the Hatch Act, and the text and legislative
Available at https://osc.gov/Resources/HA%20Social%20Media%20FINAL%20r.pdf.
OSC is empowered by statute to investigate Hatch Act violations. 5 U.S.C. § 1216(a). OSC may issue advisory
opinions concerning the applicability of 5 C.F.R. part 735 pursuant to 5 U.S.C. § 1212(f) and 5 C.F.R. § 734.102(a).
1

2

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 Hon. Henry Kerner
Page6
history of the Hatch Act Amendments, OLC concluded that OPM, not OSC, possessed the
authority to promulgate regulations explicating the Hatch Act as amended. OLC dete1mined that
the division of Hatch Act authority between OPM and OSC "flows from clear statutory
pronouncements" and "[t]he legislative history of the Hatch Act Amendments fortifies the
conclusion that Congress approved of OPM's traditional obligation to issue Hatch Act
regulations." Id. at 3, 5. OLC further concluded that Congress clearly rejected the idea that OSC
has rule-making authority. Id. at 5. Remarkably, even an OLC opinion clearly explaining that
OSC lacks authority to issue additional rules beyond the statute and OPM regulations has not
stopped OSC from attempting to impose its own set of "rules," without authority or a transparent
process, to the detriment of Executive Branch employees' constitutional rights.
C. OSC's guidance is overbroad and chills protected speech.

OSC's unilateral and untested social media guidance is not only wholly unauthorized, it is
also overbroad under existing law. According to OSC, "the Hatch Act prohibits an employee from
engaging in political activity on a personal social media account if the employee also uses that
account for official purposes." Rep mi at 13. OSC provides no citation to the statute or any
regulation for this proposition, which appears to be consistent only with its own social media
guidance. Office of Special Counsel, "Hatch Act Guidance on Social Media" ("OSC Social Media
Guidance"), at 8. 3 OSC asserts that, based on this alone, Ms.Conway violated the Hatch Act's
prohibition against using her "official authority or influence for the purpose of ... affecting the
result of an election" by allegedly using her Twitter account, "@KellyannePolls," for both official
and political purposes. Report at 13-15. OSC's rationale appears to be that having one social
media account in which some posts contain officially related activity and other posts contain
political activity per se constitutes using "official authority or influence" to affect an election
result.
Examining the facts of Ms. Conway's personal Twitter account highlights the absurdity of
OSC's overbroad and unsupported social media guidance. Ms. Conway created her personal
Twitter account in 2012, many years before she entered government service. Since establishing
her account, and long before joining the Administration, she has been a prolific Twitter user,
posting regularly on public policy and political issues. That Ms. Conway has continued to be a
prolific Twitter user since joining the Administration, commenting on public policy and political
issues as she did before, is unremarkable. In fact, she is constitutionally entitled to continue to
comment in her personal capacity after entering public service. See U.S. Const. amend. I; 5 U.S.C.
§ 7323(c). Therefore, even assuming arguendo that some posts on her Twitter account were for
"official purposes," which is not accurate, that alone cannot establish that she somehow uses her
official authority when making separate and unrelated personal posts. Such a broad inte1pretation
of the law would impermissibly prohibit Ms. Conway from continuing to make comments in her
personal capacity through a personal media distribution channel she had established long before
entering public service.
Moreover, OSC's interpretation is pmiicularly problematic here because Ms. Conway does
not, in fact, use her Twitter account for any "official purpose." She does not issue press releases,
3

Available at https :/lose.gov/Resources/HA%20Social%20Media%20FINAL%20r.pd£

6

 Hon. Hemy Kerner
Page 7
press statements, or any other original White House content using her personal Twitter account.
Neither does she currently use her official title or position. Despite this, OSC's position appears
to be that Ms. Conway's personal Twitter account must be considered an official communications
tool because she has used this personal account to post materials related to the Administration's
official activities-precisely the type of public policy and political issues on which she commented
long before she entered the Administration. Ms. Conway does not surrender her First Amendment
right to comment on these same topics in her personal capacity, using her personal social media
account, simply because she answered the call to serve in our federal government. See Pickering
v. Bd. of Educ., 391 U.S. 563, 572-73 (1968) (discussing importance of government employees'
ability "to speak out freely on" public policy "without fear of retaliatory dismissal"). This is,
however, precisely what OSC's current social media guidance demands. By making such an
extraordinary determination, OSC has overreached in its interpretation of the Hatch Act. Such a
construction has a chilling effect on all federal employees whose fundamental First Amendment
right to engage in political and public policy discussions should not be compromised based solely
on OSC's guidance.
III.

Ms. Conway's Personal Twitter Account Does Not Violate OSC's Non-Binding
Guidance.

Straining to find any "official activity" on Ms. Conway's Twitter account, OSC further
stretches its "rules" in an attempt to unlawfully police federal employees' personal social media
accounts. OSC's own guidance appears to prohibit using a personal social media account for
political purposes if it creates even a perception that the account is "being used in ways that suggest
it is an official social media account." OSC Social Media Guidance, at 8. The factors OSC
considers in dete1mining whether an account may be "perceived" as an official account include
the following: (1) the account contains little to no personal content; (2) the account identifies the
individual as a federal employee; (3) the account extensively uses photographs of the employee's
official activities; (4) the account often references, retweets, likes, comments, or otherwise shares
material related to official activities; or (5) the account is linked to an agency website or other
official page.4 Even assuming the validity of considering these factors as a standard, Ms.
Conway's personal Twitter account does not violate OSC's non-binding guidance.
First, Ms. Conway's Twitter account includes significant personal content, including many
political posts. For example, from January 2018 until present, Ms. Conway has posted over 450
posts on her personal account. Over 200 posts are retweets of major media outlets. The subject
matter of these retweets varies-including political matters, conservative issues, and media
analysis of Administration policies. That is entirely consistent with Ms. Conway's previous use of
her personal Twitter account from before she entered government service. In addition, there are a
number of posts completely unrelated to political or government matters. For example, Ms.

4

OSC's guidance was reissued in February 2018 during the course of the current Adminisa·ation. It added the
"rule'' on "Misusing Personal Social Media Accounts." See Id. OSC's previous guidance on social media accounts
issued in 2015, which consisted of "Frequently Asked Questions" posted on its website, did not contain this "rnle".
See Office of Special Counsel, "OSC Updates Hatch Act Guidance for Social Media," available at
https:/lose.gov/News/pr 15-23 .pdf.

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Conway has posts related to sports5 and birthday wishes. 6 It therefore strains credulity to conclude,
as OSC has done, that there is "little content that would be considered personal." Letter from OSC
to Ms. Conway, Counselor to the President, Re: OSC File No. HA-19-0631, at 2 (Dec. 20, 2018).
Second, Ms. Conway's personal Twitter account does not identify her by her government
title. Although her account did so in the past, it was blessed by other OSC guidance that
specifically allowed employees to "include your official title or position and where you work in
your social media profile" and to engage in political activity on a personal social media account.
Office of Special Counsel, "Hatch Act Social Media Quick Guide" (Feb. 2018). 8
7

Third, Ms. Conway's account does not extensively use photographs or videos of her official
activities. A review of the posts made by Ms. Conway in 2018 indicates that less than 10 percent
include photographs or videos that may be related to her official duties. Additionally, the majority
of posts that do include images related to her official duties are retweets of media interviews and
articles rather than original official Administration content.
Fourth, Ms. Conway's account does not often reference, retweet, like, comment, or
otherwise share materials related to her official activities. Again, although there are some retweets
of other Administration officials' posts, these retweets do not constitute a large percentage of Ms.
Conway's overall Twitter posts. Of the more than 450 posts on @KellyarmePolls from 2018,
approximately fifty were retweets of other Administration officials' posts. This constitutes
approximately 11% of her posts for the year. And even these tweets concern policy topics that
Ms. Conway has long believed to be important, including well before she became a federal
employee.
In sum, Ms. Conway's use of her personal Twitter account does not violate any of the
factors OSC identifies as guideposts in its non-binding guidance documents.
IV.

Ms. Conway's Media Appearances Do Not Violate The Hatch Act.

OSC attempts to characterize Ms. Conway's media appearances as violating the Hatch Act
because, OSC alleges, she "repeatedly commented on 2020 presidential candidates during official
media interviews." Report at 6. As an initial matter, the Hatch Act's prohibition on using official
authority or influence to affect the result of an election is not violated by simply commenting on
an individual who is running for office. Such an interpretation goes well beyond a reasonable
constrnction of the statute and is at odds with the narrow construction typically given to restrictions
on First Amendment-protected activities. After all, there are cunently U.S. senators and
representatives, as well as governors, all tunning for President. Several of these individuals have
announced affirmative policy proposals that they are also supporting in their current positions.
Unsurprisingly, these candidates almost uniformly oppose and criticize the President's own policy
initiatives. That is merely a feature of the way robust political debate operates in our country. It
A review of her Twitter account from January 2018 reveals at least IO posts specific to the Philadelphia Eagles.
See, e.g. https://twitter.com/KellyannePolls/status/1004862119991566336.
7 See https://twitter.com/KellyannePolls?ref_src�twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor.
8
Available at https://osc.gov/Resources/Social%20Media%20Quick%20Guide%20FINAL %20r.pdf.
5

6

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 Hon. Henry Kerner
Page 9
cannot supply a basis for prohibiting an adviser to the President from commenting on a competing
policy proposal or the individual who offers it simply because that individual is also running for
President.
Prior OSC guidance acknowledges this general principle. "Absent evidence that the
criticism or praise is [directed at the success or failure of a political party, candidate for partisan
political office, or partisan political group], criticism or praise of an administration's policies and
actions is not considered political activity." Office of Special Counsel, "Guidance Regarding
Political Activity" (Nov. 27,2018). Therefore, political activity does not include merely criticizing
policy proposals offered by aspiring candidates who hope to implement them in a future
administration. Any other rule would not adequately allow the President's advisers to defend his
policy positions, to criticize conflicting policy proposals, and to engage in policy commentary. 9
This includes comments that may concern matters on which opinion is politically divided or that
may have collateral partisan consequences. Cf Payment of Expenses Associated with Travel by
the President and Vice President, 6 Op. O.L.C. 214,217 (1982) (discussing mixed official/private
nature of Presidential campaign trips).
Even applying OSC' s overbroad interpretation of the I-latch Act, the Report's criticism fails
on its own te1ms. OSC places significant weight on the fact that Ms. Conway discussed
Democratic candidates by name in response to questions. Report at 6. But in most of the cases
cited in the Report, Ms. Conway was prompted by news anchors to comment on Democratic
politicians. 10 And in every case, Ms. Conway actively pivoted the conversation back to the
discussion of policy ideas ranging from combating the opioid crisis, to securing the border, to
defeating ISIS. Even where Ms. Conway did comment on Democratic politicians, she spoke about
Democrats in general terms as having no substantive policy proposals. For example, in her April
22 interview, Ms. Conway stated that it was i1Televant how many candidates entered the
Democratic primary race, because they all had poor policy proposals: "I would just remind
everyone simple math, whether it's one, whether it's 19, whether it's 50, anything times zero
equals zero, simple multiplication, so 50 Democrats can run, 19 are now running, but if your
message is zero, it's a big zero." 11 And where she criticized anyone specifically by name, she did
so by criticizing the poor policy proposals----or absence of policy proposals�associated with them.
Again, in her April 24 interview, Ms. Conway again focused on policy proposals: "Bernie Sanders
has a lot in common with Donald Trump, which is he doesn't really care about what his party
In a related context, OSC has acknowledged that discussion of public policy matters is not political activity. See
Office of Special Counsel, Federal FAQs, available at https://osc.gov/Pages/HatchAct-FAQs.aspx ("The Hatch Act
does not prohibit employees at any time, including when they are at work or on duty, from expressing their personal
opinions about events, issues, or matters."); id. ("[E]mployees may express their opinions about current events and
matters of public interest at work so long as their actions are not considered political activity. For example,
employees are free to express their views and take action as individual citizens on such questions as referendum
matters, changes in municipal ordinances, constitutional amendments, pending legislation or other matters of public
interest, like issues involving highways, schools, housing, and taxes.").
10
Even where repotters did not ask Ms. Conway to comment on specific Democratic politicians by name, they
repeatedly did so by referencing topics that could only be reasonably interpreted as requests for comments on
specific politicians.
11
Anna Hopkins, Kellyanne Conway: Trump Can't be Impeached by an Investigation Democrats Started, Fox News
(Apr. 22, 2019), available at https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kellyanne-conway-trwnp-impeachment-democrats.
9

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thinks about his candidacy at this point in the primaries .... The only difference between Bernie
Sanders and Donald Trump is Bernie Sanders' ideas are terrible for America." 12
But OSC did not contact Ms. Conway for comment on these or any other statements
referenced in the Report. If it had, it would have seen that these interviews, taken as a whole,
focused predominately on policy conversations and included marginal references to specific
Democratic politicians---often at the very end of these interviews.
A case in point is OS C's blanket refusal to inquire into the context of Ms. Conway's alleged
retort to a reporter, "Let me know when the jail sentence starts," which served as the transparent
impetus for the hasty release of OSC' s Report. Report at 1. In fact, this statement occun-ed at the
end of a lengthy substantive exchange between Ms. Conway and a reporter regarding the
mechanics of the Hatch Act.13 In a series of questions, Ms. Conway asked the reporter if he could
"tell me what the Hatch Act is and how one violates it? You can look down at your notes." During
this line of questioning, Ms. Conway explained how prior criticism of her media appearances failed
to assess her statements in context. After further questions, Ms. Conway complained that the
reporter's questions were a failed attempt to chill her protected speech, saying, "If you are trying
to silence me for the Hatch Act, it is not going to work." It was in this context that she asked the
reporter to identify "when the jail sentence starts," in an effort to highlight her view of the
reporter's lack of knowledge about the Act. But she emphatically did not "scoff[] at her
responsibilities under the Hatch Act and ridicule[] its enforcement." Report at 1.
V.

OSC Has Politicized Its Role By Failing To Apply Its Standards In An
Evenhanded Manner Across Administrations.

Vague standards invite abuse. The opaque manner in which OSC has drafted and applied
its standards on political activity has led to the inevitable abuse of discretion. Unfortunately,
OSC's oven-eaching in its efforts to target Ms. Conway, combined with its history of refusing to
apply its policies evenhandedly to the prior Democratic administration, create the impression that
OSC is attempting to tilt the political playing field and to inject itself into partisan politics.
For example, during the Obama Administration, Press Secretary Josh Earnest made a
lengthy and vitriolic statement attacking then-candidate Trump during the Presidential campaign
while speaking to reporters in his official capacity from the podium of the White House briefing
room. When asked why OSC did not file a complaint or author a report on this incident, the Office
merely stated that the public had not complained about his egregious behavior. But the whole
point of vesting an independent agency with the authority to investigate and report on violations
of the Hatch Act is to eliminate the bias that bears down on politically targeted individuals and to
ensure that the law is applied evenhandedly. The disparnte treatment of Mr. Earnest and Ms.
Conway violates traditional notions of fairness.
Talia Kaplan, Kellyanne Conway to Democrats: 'Are you going to talkfor the rest o/2019 into 2020 about
impeachment or infi-astructure? ', Fox News Channel (Apr. 24, 2019), available at
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/kellyanne-conway-to-democrats-are-you-going-to-talk-for-the-rest-of-20 l 9-into2020-about-impeachment-or-infrastrncture.
13 See Kel/yane Conway Remarks to Reports, C-Span (May 29, 2019), available at https://www.c­
span.org/video/?461193-J/kellyanne-conway-defends-president-trumps-criticism-joe-biden.
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10

 Hon. Henry Kerner
Page 11
VI.

Requests For Responses And Additional Information.

Again, in light of the many significant issues discussed in this initial response, I reiterate
our request that OSC withdraw and retract its Report. If the OSC chooses not to do so, the White
House will need additional info1mation to consider fully and fairly each of the allegations and
OSC's conclusions. Accordingly, we ask that you provide the following information by June 21,
2019.
1.
2.
3.
4.

OSC's entire investigation files relating to the Report;
All internal correspondence relating to the Report and any underlying investigation;
All external correspondence relating to the Report and any underlying investigation;
Internal policies and procedures relating to the Report and any underlying
investigation, including policies and procedures on initiating an investigation
generally, on investigating White House employees specifically, and on issuing social
media guidance related to the Hatch Act; and
5. Copies of all OSC and other documents relied upon in drafting the Report.
* * *

We reiterate that the White House takes seriously the principles codified in the Hatch Act,
which respects and protects the First Amendment rights of federal employees. 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a).
We ask OSC to do the same. Just recently in March, all White House Office employees were
trained on Hatch Act compliance as part of the Office's mandatory annual ethics training. In May,
we distributed updated written guidance on employee political activities to all White House Office
employees. We are also offering ongoing specialized training on Hatch Act obligations.
At the same time, the White House is also committed to ensuring that OSC exercises its
significant authority in an appropriate and neutral manner and without infringing on the
fundamental First Amendment rights of all federal gove1mnent employees. OSC's apparent timing
and motivation behind issuing the Report as well as the substance of the Report's analysis and
recommendation raise serious questions about OSC's commitment to the principles codified in the
Hatch Act. We look forward to reviewing the responses and documents requested above and to
meeting in person as soon as possible to discuss our concerns.

cc:

Ana Galindo-Marrone, Chief, Hatch Act Unit
Susan K. Ullman, General Counsel

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