The Referee Is Campaigning
On the eve of the midterms, Hatch Act complaints name Cabinet secretaries and FCC Chair Brendan Carr while ABC tells a court its coverage is already bending.
There comes a point when the people who are supposed to call the game start putting on a jersey.
I am not talking about a cable-news panel.
I am talking about Cabinet secretaries on a midterm stage, and a federal communications chairman whose agency is hauling a network's broadcast licenses in for an early look while that same network tells a federal judge it is second-guessing its own coverage.
I will say this up front, because some of you will stop reading if I don't.
I voted for Trump.
I wanted him back.
I still prefer this administration to the alternative that spent four years lecturing the rest of us about "norms" while treating norms like optional furniture.
But I swore a long time ago I would never be a cheerleader.
Cheerleaders don't ask whether the referee is campaigning.
Cheerleaders just yell louder.
The Hatch Act is not a vibes check
The Hatch Act is an eighty-seven-year-old federal statute.
It exists so executive-branch employees — not the President, not the Vice President — do not use official authority or influence to tip an election.
The Office of Special Counsel enforces it.
For Cabinet-level officials, findings often go to the President for discipline.
That last part matters, and I will come back to it.
On the eve of these midterms, TIME and other outlets report that at least nine of Trump's fifteen Cabinet secretaries have been hit with formal Hatch Act complaints over campaign-trail appearances and related activity.
Kedric Payne, the ethics head at the Campaign Legal Center, told TIME the volume is "extreme and abnormal" for election season, especially against senior officials.
He said he has "lost track," but thinks it is well over twenty complaints in recent weeks.
Read that again.
Complaints.
Not convictions.
Not OSC findings.
Not MSPB orders.
I am going to keep saying that, because the advocacy groups filing these papers are not a jury, and I will not pretend otherwise.
What the Alaska complaint actually alleges
On October 13, in Wasilla, Alaska, President Trump headlined a rally for Republican Senator Dan Sullivan in his tight race against Democrat Mary Peltola.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr appeared as well.
Democracy Defenders Fund and Reporters Without Borders filed a complaint with the Office of Special Counsel asking for an investigation of Carr, Burgum, and Lutnick.
According to that complaint, Carr said he was speaking in a "personal capacity," then talked about FCC broadband work in Alaska and a commitment to keep working with Senator Sullivan until every person in the state is connected to high-speed internet.
That sat next to Trump's announcement of a planned FCC vote to put more money into Alaska broadband.
Burgum and Lutnick, the complaint says, discussed administration priorities including the Alaska LNG pipeline, and Trump introduced them by their official titles.
The Hatch Act rule the groups are leaning on is not mysterious.
Political activity is supposed to be personal: no official title, no implication that the United States government is endorsing a candidate, personal time, personal expense.
Richard Painter — chief White House ethics lawyer under George W Bush — told TIME the same thing in plain English.
The Administration's answer, also on the record, is that these officials were acting in a personal capacity and that lawyers and ethics officials cleared the activity.
White House spokeswoman Lauren Bis told TIME that senior administration officials "are allowed to discuss current events, policies, and the candidates involved with those policies in order to advance the agenda of the administration."
Fine.
Put that on the table next to the statute and let OSC do its job.
What I will not do is shrug and say the law is only for the other team.
It is not just one rally
TIME's rundown is broader than Alaska.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appeared in Wisconsin on October 20 with Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden during a Pentagon manufacturing tour.
Vice President JD Vance and Burgum spoke in Topeka.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefly joined Trump on stage in Corpus Christi at the President's urging.
In August, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy endorsed Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Michigan — and Democracy Defenders Fund filed a Hatch Act complaint over that too.
Separately, CREW has filed a string of complaints alleging officials used official titles or government platforms while weighing in on races: White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller on Fox News; Health Secretary RFK Jr.; FBI Director Kash Patel; and others tracked by public watchdogs, including Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
HHS called the Kennedy accusations "baseless" and a "manufactured political attack," and said the Secretary consults career ethics officials.
The Campaign Legal Center has also complained about taxpayer-funded ads it says carry partisan rhetoric — spots involving Iran, socialism, and Mount Rushmore — naming officials including OMB Director Russell Vought, DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, and Appointments Secretary Natalie Harp.
Trump's defense of the ads was that he was "only promoting the country."
Again: allegation, investigation, finding — in that order.
I am not here to rubber-stamp every filing from groups that hate this White House.
I am here to say the firewall exists for a reason, and if your side starts treating it like a suggestion, you do not get to complain when the next crowd does the same with the lights flipped.
The referee with a license book
Now the piece that should make conservatives sit up straight, even if they never open a Hatch Act complaint PDF.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr's agency ordered an early review of eight ABC / Disney-owned broadcast licenses that were not due for renewal until between 2028 and 2031.
ABC sued in August, arguing the move is retaliation for coverage and commentary the administration dislikes.
At a hearing on October 6 before US District Judge Loren AliKhan in Washington, ABC counsel Beth Wilkinson told the court the network is already changing editorial decisions.
She said they are "watching everything" they do because coverage choices bring "anger in the administration and the retaliation from the agency."
She compared the posture to sitting with a "head on a guillotine."
Reporting on that hearing, including from CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, and POLITICO, describes ABC saying midterm coverage choices and even clip selection on shows like The View are being second-guessed under the pressure of the license review.
The Justice Department, defending the FCC, says the early call-in is tied to an anti-discrimination / DEI discovery fight, not a punishment for speech.
Carr has denied that the agency is infringing free-speech rights.
I am not a district judge.
I do not get to decide who wins that case.
But I can read the overlap.
The same chairman named in a Hatch Act complaint for mixing FCC work into a campaign rally is the chairman of the agency holding a network's licenses years early, while that network tells a court — under oath-adjacent seriousness — that its newsroom decisions are already bending.
If you spent years screaming about government jawboning Big Tech, you do not get a free pass when the referee looks like he is on the field.
Free speech is not a team jersey.
It is the rulebook.
Why "trust us" is not enough
In 2021, the Office of Special Counsel documented that at least thirteen senior officials in the first Trump Administration violated the Hatch Act in 2020.
In 2018, OSC found Kellyanne Conway had violated it; Trump declined to fire her and framed it as an attack on her free speech.
Payne's point to TIME is the hard one: for Cabinet officials, the President often decides the discipline.
So if the person who benefits from the campaigning is also the person who decides whether campaigning gets punished, "cleared by lawyers" starts to sound like a closed loop.
I used to respect the guy who said drain the swamp without becoming the swamp's new decorator.
I still want this administration to succeed on the things that matter: borders, energy, speech, a government that does not treat half the country as a pathology.
That is exactly why I will not clap when Cabinet titles walk onto a midterm stage, or when the communications regulator's leverage and a network's softer coverage show up in the same news cycle like a coincidence we are supposed to ignore.
Maybe every one of these complaints dies on OSC's desk.
Maybe some stick.
Maybe the FCC wins in court and ABC looks theatrical.
I do not know.
What I do know is this.
Not a blank check for my side.
Not a blank check for CREW.
Not a blank check for "personal capacity" as magic words that erase a title Trump just used to introduce you.
Accountability is not a Democratic talking point.
It is the only thing that keeps power from laughing at the people who still believe in rules.
So here we are, on the eve of an election, with Hatch Act paper flying, a Cabinet on the trail, and a referee holding a license book while a major network says it is already flinching.
I am not asking you to hate Trump.
I am asking you to hate the idea that the people who enforce the rules get to campaign in the same breath.
If the law only binds the fools, and the wise get a wink, then we do not have a republic.
We have a jersey.
And Remember:
Trust no Single Source
Trust Your Gut
and Stay Curious
Jesse
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