Former Press Secretary Says Trump Encouraged Staff To Break The Law

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According to Stephanie Grisham, one of the many different press secretaries who served under Donald Trump, the former President actually encouraged his staff to break the law by violating The Hatch Act. Grisham claims that Trump told them he was in charge of the Act, and that they could go ahead and "say whatever they want" because he wasn't going to punish them for it. If Trump actually made this claim, he isn't wrong, and that's the big problem with Hatch. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins discusses this.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Over the weekend, Stephanie Grisham, who at one point had actually served as the press secretary for the Trump White House, admitted that Donald Trump actually encouraged employees to break the law. Here's what Ms. Grisham said. In the White House, when we would get Hatch Act violations, that was a badge of honor. It was a joke in the White House. The president used to say to us, quote, you know, who's in charge of the Hatch Act, it's me. Go ahead, say whatever you want to say. Now, of course, last week we got the report showing that in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, there were at least 13 members of the Trump White House who have now been found to have violated the Hatch Act. And as I explained in that video, it is up to the current president where these individuals who broke the Hatch Act we're working, to punish them.

And because they did this under Donald Trump, there is no real way to actually punish these individuals. So in a sick and twisted way, Donald Trump's comments here were absolutely correct. Just like the time when Kellyanne Conway had repeatedly violated the Hatch Act office of inspector general said, listen, you need to fire her because she keeps breaking the law. All Trump had to say was, no, I'm not going to do that and there was nothing anyone could do about it. So I don't doubt for a second that Stephanie Grisham is telling the truth here, because based on what we saw out of the White House, everybody that was working there had no problem violating federal law. The Hatch Act is in fact, a federal law. It may be one that's, you know, not that big of a deal. It's not like you went out and murdered somebody. But you cannot engage in political actions while on your official duty as a, you know, member of the White House.

That's it. Some people may even think it's a silly law, but it's still a law. It doesn't matter if you agree with it or disagree with it. It is the law of the land and there are actual consequences for breaking it. The problem is we just never have anybody serving as president who wants to punish people for it. We saw multiple Hatch Act violations in the Bush administration. We had some during the Obama administration. We've had one so far this year with the Biden administration. And just nobody does anything about it. So what do we do? How do we prevent future presidents, possibly even a future president Trump, again, from encouraging people to break the law? You got to remake the law. That is the only possible way to get around this ridiculous rule that only the president who was presiding when the Hatch Act violations occurred, can discipline these individuals.

I think it needs to be a matter for Congress, either that or a matter for the DOJ with no presidential input, but either one of those, you're also going to run into the political problems because the DOJ is going to be on literally whatever side the current administration is because they're the ones who picked them and Congress is going to be whatever party holds Congress. So if a Democrat commits a Hatch Act violation, but Democrats control Congress, they're not going to do anything.