It’s hard to overstate the intensity of Donald Trump’s contempt for Republican Rep. Thomas Massie. Put it this way: The president appears to hate the Kentucky congressman and windmills in roughly equal measure.
With this in mind, Trump and his political operation have gone after the incumbent lawmaker with a vengeance, as part of what’s become the single most expensive congressional primary in American history. As part of the effort, the president even deployed a high-profile surrogate to Kentucky the day before Primary Day. The New York Times reported on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s stunning return to the campaign trail:
Speaking at a campaign event for Ed Gallrein, Mr. Massie’s rival in the Republican primary, Mr. Hegseth attacked Mr. Massie as an obstructionist, accusing the seven-term libertarian known for bucking the party line of betraying his fellow Republicans — in particular Mr. Trump, who has often raged against Mr. Massie in public statements.
“Too often Massie’s instinct is to throw elbows at fellow Republicans instead of the people who are destroying our country or want to destroy our country,” the beleaguered Pentagon chief said, in apparent reference to Americans who dare to disagree with the White House.
Part of the problem with Hegseth’s efforts in Kentucky is that he presumably had other things to do on Monday. Indeed, according to the secretary’s boss, as recently as Monday morning, the president was moving forward with tentative plans for a renewed military offensive in Iran (which Trump called off hours later). It stands to reason that the nation’s defense secretary would have been rather busy on such a day, and intervening in a congressional primary in Kentucky shouldn’t have been at the top of his to-do list.
What’s more, there are unraveling institutional norms to consider. The Times’ report added, “The campaign appearance was an extraordinary breach of military decorum — even for Mr. Hegseth, who has stretched the boundaries of partisan politics in his job leading the Pentagon. Previous defense secretaries and other Pentagon officials typically stay far away from such activities to avoid even the appearance of partisanship.”
But I’m also struck by the reminder that members of Team Trump routinely act as if rules don’t apply to them.
There’s a federal ethics law called the Hatch Act, which, as the administration well knows, prohibits federal employees from engaging in partisan political activities while they’re on the job.
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In fairness, it’s important to emphasize that Hegseth explicitly said at one of his campaign stops in Kentucky, “I have to say up front, for the lawyers, that I’m here in my personal capacity as a private citizen.”
The trouble is that that phrasing does not automatically immunize a Cabinet secretary. Around this time a decade ago, for example, then-Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro did an interview in which said, in reference to the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries, “Now, taking off my HUD hat for a second and just speaking individually, it is very clear that Hillary Clinton is the most experienced, thoughtful and prepared candidate for president that we have this year.”
The fact that he said he was “speaking individually” didn’t matter: The Office of Special Counsel determined that Castro ran afoul of the Hatch Act.
As a practical matter, there’s no reason to assume Hegseth will ever face any punishment for his overtly partisan activities. It falls on the executive branch itself to impose penalties on those found to have violated the Hatch Act, and given that Team Trump treated the ethics law as a literal joke in its first term, it’s a safe bet that Hegseth won’t even get a slap on the wrist.
The bottom line, however, remains the same: When it comes to pursuing the president’s political objectives, his operation is utterly indifferent to limits.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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