Senior HUD official reprimanded for Hatch Act violations

The Office of Special Counsel has reprimanded Lynne Patton, a top Department of Housing and Urban Development official with ties to President Donald Trump’s family, for making political statements on the job.

Patton, a HUD regional administrator for New York and New Jersey, used her official government Twitter account to promote political tweets and displayed a red “USA” hat sold by the Trump campaign in her office.

The OSC issued Patton a warning letter after determining that both activities violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits executive branch officials from certain political activity while on duty. But the office cleared her of two other alleged violations, involving a tweet defending HUD Secretary Ben Carson and an appearance at an oversight hearing featuring Michael Cohen.

“Although OSC concluded that you violated the Hatch Act by unwittingly displaying a campaign hat in your office and ‘liking’ partisan political tweets on your official Twitter account, we have decided not to pursue disciplinary action and are closing our files without further action,” Erica Hamrick, deputy chief of the OSC’s Hatch Act Unit, wrote in a letter to Patton Wednesday.

Patton released a statement thanking the office on Wednesday, calling it "an unbiased voice in Washington."

“OSC has determined that I did not violate the Hatch Act as it pertained to my attendance at the Michael Cohen hearing, as well as my tweet defending Secretary Carson,” she said in an e-mail.

“OSC decided not to pursue disciplinary action for two minor infractions,” she added of the two incidents where the office found fault. “I look forward to continuing to focus on the residents of New York and New Jersey, whose well-being I care about the most.”

Patton, who previously worked as the vice president of the Eric Trump Foundation and reportedly planned Eric Trump’s wedding before her appointment to the senior post at HUD, earlier this year said that she didn’t care whether she violated the Hatch Act.

She wrote on Facebook in May that a tweet she had reposted defending Carson “may be a Hatch Act violation. It may not be. Either way, I honestly don’t care anymore…”

The reposted tweet also took a swipe at Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-N.Y.) intelligence, but the OSC determined that message did not run afoul of the Hatch Act because neither Carson nor Ocasio-Cortez were candidates for office at the time.

OSC also concluded that Patton’s appearance at the hearing featuring Cohen did not break the rules, since she was on leave and “appeared at the hearing in [her] personal capacity,” according to Hamrick’s letter to Patton.

There are four tweets OSC found did violate the law. Patton liked a tweet from Trump endorsing then-candidate Ron DeSantis’ run for governor of Florida; a Republican National Committee tweet criticizing Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.); a Republican Party tweet advocating for Mike Pompeo to be named secretary of State; and a Kanye West tweet about getting his Make America Great Again hat signed.

“Please be advised that if in the future you engage in prohibited political activity while employed in a position covered by the Hatch Act, we will consider such activity to be a willful and knowing violation of the law, which could result in further action,” Hamrick wrote to Patton.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which brought the initial complaints against Patton, released a statement lamenting the outcome.

“After years of serving Donald Trump’s interests, it appears that Lynne Patton is still doing so in her taxpayer-funded job,” CREW Executive Director Noah Bookbinder said in an emailed statement. “In a democracy, laws preventing the government from acting to keep itself in power are crucial, and we will work tirelessly to see that they are enforced.”

Patton is not the first Trump administration official to land in trouble over Hatch Act violations. In June, OSC recommended that senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway be removed from her job for multiple violations of the law.

Conway had previously dismissed questions about her alleged violations.

“If you’re trying to silence me through the Hatch Act, it’s not going to work. Let me know when the jail sentence starts,” Conway said in May.