WASHINGTON − The White House is continuing to use the term “MAGA” to label Republican opposition despite a federal watchdog agency’s warning that the language is a violation of the Hatch Act.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre blasted Republicans’ fiscal blueprint as a “hardcore MAGA budget” on Wednesday.
Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary, called Republicans’ top economic priority “MAGA tax welfare for the richest Americans and giant corporations” in a memo the same day.
And a memo from Bates Thursday slammed House Republicans’ budget proposal as “an extreme MAGA plan that guts crucial Medicare benefits American families pay to earn.”
Each statement came after the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, in a June 7 letter, said Jean-Pierre’s use of “MAGA Republicans” during press briefings in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits federal employees from using their title to engage in political activity to interfere with the results of an election.
Biden started using the phrase “ultra MAGA Republicans” last year to paint Republicans as increasingly extreme and beholden to former President Donald Trump and the MAGA movement he spawned.
Although Jean-Pierre “never expressly instructed viewers” to vote for or against Republican candidates, wrote Ana Galindo-Marrone, who heads the Hatch Act Unit of the Office of Special Counsel, “the timing, frequency, and content of Ms. Jean‐Pierre’s references to ‘MAGA Republicans'” proved the references were to generate opposition to Republicans.”
The Office of Special Counsel opted against disciplinary action. But Galindo-Marrone said the agency advised Jean-Pierre that “should she again engage in prohibited political activity, OSC would consider it a knowing and willful violation of the law that could result in OSC pursuing disciplinary action.”
Jean-Pierre, when asked about the violation Tuesday, pointed to nearly 2,000 uses of “Make America Great Again” on the archived White House web site from the Trump years and said congressional Republicans have frequently used “MAGA” in official policy “for years now.”
“At the time, I was given the sign-off to use that terminology,” Jean-Pierre said, adding that White House attorneys will have a “routine conversation” with the Special Counsel’s office about the Hatch Act allegations.
The Special Counsel’s judgement was prompted by a Hatch Act complaint from Protect the Public’s Trust, a conservative watchdog group. The organization on Thursday filed a new complaint targeting the continued use of “MAGA” by Jean-Pierre and Bates.
“These statements appear to be nothing less than a deliberate thumb in the eye to OSC and a clear indication that White House Press Office personnel don’t believe the rules apply to them,” said Michael Chamberlain, director of Protect the Public’s Trust and a former Education Department official in the Trump administration.
The White House did not comment on the new complaint. The Special Counsel office also declined to comment.
Ironically, Jean-Pierre regularly cites the Hatch Act as a reason not to engage on reporters’ questions involving Trump, who is running for president in 2024.
Trump and other members of his administration famously violated the Hatch Act frequently, including using the White House ground for Trump’s 2020 Republican National Convention speech.
More than a dozen high-level Trump administration officials improperly used their official government powers in violation of the Hatch Act to try to influence the 2020 election, the Special Counsel’s office concluded in a report in November 2021.
Reach Joey Garrison on Twitter @joeygarrison.
