THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2019 |POLITICO| 3Senior HUD official reprimanded
for Hatch Act violations
The Offi ce of Special Counsel
has reprimanded Lynne Patton, a
top Department of Housing and
Urban Development offi cial with
ties to President Donald Trump’s
family, for making political
statements on the job.
Patton, an HUD regional
administrator for New York and
New Jersey, used her offi cial
government Twitter account
to promote political tweets and
displayed a red “USA” hat sold
by the Trump campaign in her
offi ce.
The OSC issued Patton a
warning letter aft er determining
that both activities violated
the Hatch Act, which prohibits
executive branch offi cials from
certain political activity while on
duty.
But the offi ce also “decided
her violations do not warrant
disciplinary action,” Erica
Hamrick, deputy chief of the
OSC’s Hatch Act Unit, wrote
in a letter Wednesday to the
watchdog group Citizens for
Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, which brought
the initial complaints against
Patton.
“Although OSC concluded that
Ms. Patton violated the Hatch
Act by unwittingly displaying a
campaign hat in her offi ce and
‘liking’ partisan political tweets
on her offi cial Twitter account,
we have decided not to pursue
disciplinary action and are
closing our fi les without further
action,” Hamrick wrote.
Patton 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.
“A ft er 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 and spokespersons
for HUD did not immediately
respond to a request for
comment.
At issue were four tweets.
Patton liked a tweet from the
president endorsing then-
candidate Ron DeSantis’s 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.
Patton is not the fi rst Trump
administration offi cial to land
in trouble over Hatch Act
violations. The OSC in June
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.
— Katy O’DonnellTrump says he plans to
‘substantially increase’
sanctions on Iran
President Donald Trump on
Wednesday said he had directed
Treasury Secretary Steven
Mnuchin “to substantially
increase” U.S. sanctions on Iran
aft er an attack on oil facilities in
Saudi Arabia.
The action, announced
in a tweet, marks the
administration’s fi rst offi cial,
public response to the weekend
drone strike Saturday on the
Saudi kingdom’s Abqaiq plant
and its Khurais oil fi eld, which
Trump has shown reluctance in
recent days to blame squarely on
Tehran.
The president has also
hesitated to respond militarily to
Iran for allegedly disrupting the
international crude oil supply,
despite threatening Sunday that
the U.S. was “locked and loaded.”
And though Defense Secretary
Mark Esper tweeted Monday
that the U.S. is working with
“our partners to address this
unprecedented attack,” a lack
of allies on the world stage has
complicated the prospect of an
intervention by America’s armed
forces.
“I don’t want war with
anybody. I’m somebody that
would like not to have war,”
Trump said Monday, while
also warning that the U.S. is
“prepared more than anybody”
to retaliate.
But Trump appeared defensive
Tuesday evening of his approach
toward Tehran aft er Sen. Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted that
the White House’s “measured
response” to the shooting down
an American drone in June “was
clearly seen by the Iranian regime
as a sign of weakness.”Trump responded online: “No
Lindsey, it was a sign of strength
that some people just don’t
understand!”
Although Secretary of
State Mike Pompeo explicitly
condemned Iran on Saturday
for having “launched an
unprecedented attack on the
world’s energy supply,” Trump’s
more equivocal assessment of
Iranian guilt — paired with his
apparent deference to the Saudi
government in his weekend social
media posts — provoked some
consternation in Congress.
Still, Trump this week has
repeatedly suggested Iran was
behind the attack in Saudi
Arabia, remarking Monday that
“certainly it would look” as
though Tehran was responsible
and accusing its leadership of
promulgating “a very big lie”
in relation to the destruction of
the American drone earlier this
summer.
Col. Turki al-Maliki, a Saudi
military spokesman, showed
journalists at a news conference
in Riyadh on Wednesday the
remains of Iranian cruise missiles
and drones he alleged were
deployed in the attack on the
kingdom’s facilities, according to
The Associated Press.
“The attack was launched
from the north and was
unquestionably sponsored by
Iran,” he said, contradicting the
Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in
Yemen who have claimed credit
for the strike. Iran and Iraq are
situated to the north of Saudi
Arabia, while Yemen is located to
the south.
Trump’s order Wednesday to
hike sanctions on Iran comes
as the Islamic Republic already
faces punishing economic
penalties the administration has
leveled aft er withdrawing last
year from the 2015 multinational
nuclear deal.
Tensions have escalated
and diplomacy has steadilydeteriorated between Tehran and
Washington, with a potential
meeting between Trump and
Iranian President Hassan
Rouhani now unlikely to take
place on the sidelines of the
United Nations General Assembly
later this month.
— Quint ForgeyTrump blames ‘Dummy Beto’ for
endangering deal on gun reform
President Donald Trump
on Wednesday admonished
“Dummy Beto” O’Rourke for
impassioned remarks on gun
reform he made at last week’s
primary debate, charging that
they complicated the path toward
a bipartisan agreement.
“Dummy Beto made it much
harder to make a deal,” Trump
tweeted. “Convinced many that
Dems just want to take your guns
away. Will continue forward!”
The president was presumably
referencing O’Rourke’s call at
last week’s Democratic debate for
a mandatory federal buyback of
assault weapons.
“Hell yes, we’re going to take
your AR-15, your AK-47,” the
former Texas congressman
declared at the forum in Houston.
“We’re not going to allow it
to be used against our fellow
Americans any more.”
Those comments by O’Rourke
— who has advocated more
aggressive proposals aimed
at curbing fi rearm violence
following a mass shooting
last month in his hometown
of El Paso, Texas — elicited
what appeared to be a death
threat from a Republican state
representative in Texas, and have
even been criticized by some
Democrats.
Trump has vacillated in his
support for various gun reform
measures following a spate of
mass shootings over the summer
in California, Texas and Ohio,
and POLITICO reported Monday
that he will not consider a billpassed by the Democratic-
controlled House instituting
universal background checks for
fi rearm purchases.
The president met with aides
Monday to discuss potential
solutions to address gun violence,
and the White House expects to
release a package of proposals
this week.
— Quint ForgeyDemocrats press Trump to
commit to Paris climate
deal as part of USMCA
More than 100 House Democrats
are urging President Donald
Trump to ensure his new
North American trade deal will
“meaningfully address climate
change” by including binding
environmental standards and
a commitment from the United
States to remain in the Paris
climate agreement.
The demands are laid out in
a new letter House Democrats
will send to Trump later this
week. Rep. Katie Hill (D-Calif.)
is spearheading the letter, a
draft of which was obtained by
POLITICO.
“To remove these climate
threats and support workers and
communities, the renegotiated
NAFTA deal should include
binding climate standards and
be paired with a decision for the
United States to remain in the
Paris Climate Agreement,” the
draft letter says.
It adds that the standards
Democrats would like to see “will
require fundamental changes to
the current deal on the table.”
The letter — which organizers
say has support from across the
party and signatures from more
than a dozen committee chairs
— portends a clash between
Democrats and the Trump
administration over the climate
issue.
For months, Democrats have
been emphasizing a need to make
changes to the U.S.-Mexico-
Canada Agreement to better
refl ect their priorities in four core
areas, environment among them,
and the Trump administration
last week sent lawmakers formal
proposals for how it would
attempt to satisfy their concerns.
But while the administration
went some distance toward
addressing Democratic demands
to use the USMCA as a tool for
strengthening the enforcement
of seven international
environmental agreements, it
stopped short of acknowledging
climate change or including any
commitments on the Paris deal,
several people briefed on the
responses told POLITICO.
The letter, which is coming
aft er USTR’s responses were
sent to Capitol Hill, suggests
that more than 40 percent of the
Democratic conference believes
the administration’s proposals
do not go far enough toward
addressing the issue, and that
more work is left to be done.
The text USTR sent over
“failed to address the climate
crisis,” said Ben Beachy, a trade
expert with the Sierra Club,
which is backing the letter.
“Trump’s NAFTA deal would not
only ignore the climate crisis but
contribute to it,” he added.
— Megan CassellaJUSTIN SULLIVAN/GETTY IMAGES
Fuming over Trump’s emissions move
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks Wednesday at a news conference in Sacramento criticizing the Trump
administration’s plan to revoke California’s waiver to set its own auto emissions standards. Under the Clean
Air Act, the state is able to set auto emissions standards that are at least as stiff as federal standards.A daily diar y of the Trump presidencyFORTY FIVE