On Friday, the Trump administration moved to weaken federal prohibitions on government employees showing support for President Trump during work, adopting the idea that they should be authorized to wear campaign accessories and abolish the role of an independent examination committee in the violations of the police.
The special advice office, an agency involved in the application of restrictions, announced the modifications to the interpretation of the TrapA law of the era of depression designed to ensure that the federal workforce operates without political influence or coercion. Revisions, a resurrection of the rules that Mr. Trump rolled up At the end of his first mandate, but that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. could allow the surprising view of government representatives sporting Trump-Vance or “rendering America” of hats.
Critics said that the law was already largely steeped and that officials of the first Trump administration were systematically accused of having raped it, with few sanctions inflicted. And the modifications do not fully retreat the restrictions of the Hatch law, but do it in a manner that uniquely benefits Mr. Trump: the visible support for candidates and their campaigns in the future is always prohibited, but the support of the current office owner is not.
This decision may not violate the law because it will not influence the result of an election, according to experts. But that threatens to further politicize the government’s professional workforce, that Mr. Trump sought to comply with his will when he tests the limits of executive power.
“It’s a truly dark day,” Kathleen Clark, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and government ethics lawyer, said on Friday. A president should work to ensure that the public knows that the government is for everyone, she said.
“When you go to a social security office, if they are still open, you will be treated in the same way you have voted for the current president or not,” she said, referring to the government’s effective reduction efforts since Mr. Trump returned to the Oval Office.
“This is another example of taking Trump, taking control of the power of the federal government, as if it was its own system, instead of recognizing that it has a role to play as a civil servant,” said Clark.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
Friday, the special advisers’ office issued other opinions that will weaken the application of the law, removing an independent examination committee, the Merit Systems Protection Board, from its examination of the roles of violations. The office – which was historically independent but is now led by a Trump official after Mr. Trump dismissed his chief, starting a bitter fight – will examine the accusations and send conclusions to the White House, which is unlikely to take action against his own donors.
The Hatch law has been in force for over 80 years. It was intended to prevent presidents from distributing patronage jobs and filling out the administration of political friends.
Authorizing the demonstration of support for the workplace comes in when Mr. Trump takes action to considerably increase the number of people appointed politicians within the federal government, which would allow presidents to install more loyalists in higher positions – the very thing as the authors of the Hatch law sought to prevent.
Federal employees have been subjected to significant stress, much fearing that they are dismissed because the administration achieves mass layoffs.
Now, managers appointed by Trump could walk around by carrying Trump-Vance Gear, said Richard W. Painter, professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Minnesota and Chief Lawyer of the White House of George W. Bush.
“I think it is destructive to allow it,” he said.
Hampton Dellinger, the head of the Senate of the Special Council office until Mr. Trump returns him, said: “Keeping partisan policy outside government services benefited all Americans, in particular taxpayers, for generations.”
During the first Trump administration, several of his best advisers were accused of having violated the law, in particular Kellyanne ConwayHis adviser to the White House, which was cited as a “repeat offender”. Trump refused to dismiss her.