The House Oversight Committee on Wednesday voted to subpoena White House counselor Kellyanne Conway after she didn’t appear to testify over accusations she violated the Hatch Act.
“We have over two million federal employees who adhere to the Hatch Act every day. Nobody is above the law,” House Oversight Committee Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) said before the vote on Wednesday. “The committee sought her voluntary testimony today; we wanted to hear from her directly. She’s a public official who we pay, by the way, who has been accused of wrongdoing. And she refused to explain herself to the Office of the Special Counsel.”
The vote to subpoena passed after Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) joined with all the Democrats on the committee to vote in favor of the resolution.
Before taking the vote, senior Republicans on the committee argued the hearing was a political stunt and another attempt to go after the Trump administration.
“This subpoena, one, is not necessary and quite frankly it is not following the law. I can tell you that what we have here is a political spectacle,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC) said. “We’re talking about keeping politics out of government. This subpoena is nothing more than a political spectacle. We are better than this, Mr. Chairman. We are better than this. … We have one standard for Kellyanne Conway and another standard for everybody else.”
“This is one more example of the Democrats’ obsession going after this president,” Rep. Jim Jordans (R-OH) added.
The Office of Special Counsel accused Conway of repeatedly violating the Hatch Act — which forbids federal employees from engaging in partisan political activity — during media appearances and recommended that she be fired. Trump has made it clear he has no intention of firing Conway and has seized on the conservative talking point that the OSC is attempting to take away her First Amendment rights.
