Swanson: Beware Atlantic Charters

The Trump administration violated the Hatch Act. We filed a complaint.

• CREW HQ 

  From:info@citizensforethics.org

  
  

  To:Mark M Giese

  Wed, Sep 16 2026 at 12:23 PM

  Mark, Earlier this year, the Trump administration admitted in court that it is withholding funds from states based on which party won recent elections. The fact that the administration is canceling federal grants and denying government services based on political identity or voting record is a violation of the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in partisan political activity. It's also a major breach of public trust. That’s why we filed a complaint asking the Office of Special Counsel to investigate and hold those involved accountable. Since his first term, Trump and his administration have threatened or attacked Democratic-led cities and states using the powers of the federal government. At least twice in his second term, his administration has admitted that its decisions to award federal grants were politically influenced. In a court filing this past July in Thakur, et al. v. Trump—litigation challenging the administration’s cancellation of $7.6 billion in grants for hundreds of clean energy projects—the Department of Energy admitted that the Trump administration’s decisions were made “based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.” Meanwhile, hundreds of other energy grants in states that voted for Trump in the 2024 presidential election remained in place despite agency recommendations that they be canceled. Mark, Congress passed the Hatch Act in 1939 to address political manipulations of federal relief appropriations for partisan purposes. The law prohibits any executive branch employee from engaging in partisan political activities. That principle is especially important when it comes to federal grants and the resources American families and workers depend on. Those resources are supposed to be administered without political bias—not distributed based on partisan interests. Yet by their own admission, the Trump administration has failed to uphold that standard, putting the people who rely on these programs at risk. Mark, the administration’s admissions in court reflect a clear violation of the Hatch Act and, even worse, a betrayal of the public they are supposed to serve. OSC cannot stand idly by and allow federal officials to misuse the power of the federal government to carry out political retribution. To do so enables real harm to millions of people. Since the start of the second Trump administration, CREW has filed six Hatch Act complaints against senior Trump-appointed officials—and the Office of Special Counsel has yet to resolve any of them.