Office of Special Counsel finds FCC’s Ajit Pai didn’t violate the Hatch Act

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The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has cleared the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission of breaking federal law after Democratic lawmakers alleged he violated the Hatch Act when he appeared on a panel at a conservative conference.

Democratic Reps. Frank Pallone of New Jersey and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania asked OSC to investigate whether Chairman Ajit Pai violated the Hatch Act when he participated in the panel discussion at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February. But OSC said there was no violation of the law, which prohibits federal employees from using their offices to campaign for or against political candidates.

“While some sessions of CPAC were political in nature, the discussions in which you participated were not,” Ana Galindo-Marrone, chief of the Office of Special Counsel’s Hatch Act Unit, wrote in a letter to Pai on Wednesday. “Rather, it was an opportunity to highlight the FCC’s work and agenda. Thus, merely participating in the panel discussion, without more, was not political activity, and you could appear in your official capacity to speak about official FCC matters without violating the Hatch Act.”

Galindo-Marrone said the agency was closing its file on the matter.

During the panel discussion at the February event, Pai appeared alongside the FCC’s other two Republican commissioners, Michael O’Rielly and Brendan Carr. Pallone and Doyle had asked the Republican commissioners in March whether they asked FCC ethics officials about the use of their names and photos in promotional materials for CPAC, which is organized by the American Conservative Union. But OSC cleared Pai completely.

“It was alleged that ACU advertised your participation in CPAC to encourage people to buy tickets to the conference, which, in turn, could generate money to be used for partisan political purposes,” Galindo-Marrone wrote. “But announcing your participation in CPAC was concomitant to your appearance at the event, which, as explained above, did not violate the Hatch Act. And OSC has no evidence that either you or anyone else solicited political contributions during the panel discussion.”

During the panel at CPAC, Pai was given an award from the National Rifle Association for his efforts to roll back the Obama-era net neutrality rules. The award included a Kentucky handmade long gun, and while he was not given the gun on stage, Pai later declined the award on the advice of FCC’s officials.

Though the chairman was cleared of any wrongdoing, O’Rielly was found by OSC to have violated the Hatch Act for comments he made during the panel discussion about President Trump’s potential re-election.

O’Rielly, though, refuted the Office of Special Counsel’s finding and said his answer, which was about how to avoid “regulatory ping pong,” was “meant to relay the point that the only way to retain that current outcome was to maintain the current leaders in government.”

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