Everything You Wanted to Know About the Hatch Act But Were Afraid to Ask
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 8 September 2020
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Hatch Act has been in the news a lot recently, between the Republican National Convention's use of the White House grounds and Secretary Pompeo's decision to address the Convention from an official trip in Jerusalem. What does the law really require, what does it forbid and what does it permit? Benjamin Wittes spoke with Amanda Kane Rapp, senior counsel at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, and Lawfare senior editor Scott R. Anderson. They talked about whether the RNC violated the Hatch Act, where the rules come from and how in the future they might be changed.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising to access an ad-free version of the LawFair |
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| 0:14.7 | That's patreon.com slash LawFair. |
| 0:18.2 | Also, check out LawFair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, LawFair |
| 0:25.6 | no bull and the aftermath. |
| 0:32.6 | I think it's 18 USC 610 that's a statute related to unlawful intimidation, coercion, |
| 0:41.7 | or threatening employees to engage in political activities. |
| 0:45.4 | So while Kelly and Kylie can't be criminally prosecuted for retweeting something inappropriate, |
| 0:51.7 | to the extent that she tells one of her employees to do something to engage in political behavior |
| 0:57.1 | that they don't want to or coerce them in some way, then she has violated a criminal |
| 1:01.2 | statute. |
| 1:02.2 | That kind of Hatch Act federal law interplay has never really been brought up thus far |
| 1:07.5 | that I'm aware of, but that is at least still available to DOJ for superflarited violations. |
| 1:15.1 | I'm Benjamin Widis and this is the LawFair podcast September 8, 2020. |
| 1:22.6 | The Hatch Act has been in the news a lot recently between the Republican National Convention's |
| 1:28.7 | use of the White House grounds and Secretary Pompeo's decision to address the convention |
| 1:35.2 | from an official trip in Jerusalem. |
| 1:38.3 | What does the law really require? |
| 1:41.0 | What does it forbid? |
| 1:42.8 | And what does it permit? |
| 1:44.9 | We decided to do a deep dive and we asked Amanda Cain-Rap, Senior Counsel at the Law |
| 1:51.1 | Firm of Akin Gump, to come on and talk it through with us. |
... |
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