On Wednesday, the House Oversight Committee voted to subpoena testimony from Kellyanne Conway. The federal agency recommended that Conway, who is a counselor in the White House, be fired after repeatedly violating the Hatch Act. In short, the Hatch Act limits political activities (generally, regarding political speech while on the job) for federal employees.
The goal of the Hatch Act is to keep government functions as nonpartisan as possible, and includes social media posts or television appearances. And as we all know, Conway frequently violates this by attacking Democrats while in her public, official capacity.
A letter from the independent Office of Special Counsel that outlined Conway’s “numerous violations” of the Hatch Act focuses on countless instances between February and May where she publicly criticized Democrats and simultaneously tried to lift up Trump. And again, the issue here is that she did these things while serving in her official role at the White House.
The vote was 25 to 16, including one Republican (Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan) voting to subpoena Conway.
"This is not a conspiracy to silence her or restrict her First Amendment rights," said Chairman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland. "This is an effort to enforce federal law.”
Cummings has already made the stakes clear: If Conway ignores the subpoena, his panel is prepared to schedule a vote to hold Conway in contempt. This would likely create yet another challenge between Congress and the Trump administration.
Did Conway show up for the committee’s scheduled hearing on Wednesday? No.
"Nobody in this country is above the law," Cummings added.
Mind you, Trump has already said he’s not ready to fire Conway over the Hatch Act allegations. In a letter, White House counsel Pat Cipollone said that Conway doesn’t need to go before Congress. The logic from the White House? That Conway has some sort of immunity to congressional subpoenas (she doesn’t) because she works in the White House as a counselor to the president. Her job, however, doesn’t give her immunity when it comes to the allegations against her in this case.
You can check out the live stream of the House committee meeting below, courtesy of YouTube:
How do you think this will turn out?