Ethics be damned, the Trump administration is blatantly pinning the government shutdown on Democrats.
An email issued to federal workers Tuesday left little room for doubt about how the executive branch wanted to frame the congressional failure.
“President [Donald] Trump opposes a government shutdown, and strongly supports the enactment of H.R. 5371, which is a clean Continuing Resolution to fund the government through November 21,” the email, which was obtained by HuffPost, stated. “Unfortunately, Democrats are blocking this Continuing Resolution in the U.S. Senate due to unrelated policy demands.”
The email was received by employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Social Security Administration, reported HuffPost. Leaders of those same agencies sent out the email.
That kind of language is in violation of the Standards of Ethical Conduct for Employees of the Executive Branch, according to ethics experts. It could also violate the Hatch Act, which is designed to limit partisan messaging from federal employees.
But it hasn’t been the only instance in which the Trump administration has ignored long-standing presidential principles in order for Donald Trump to get his way.
The official White House website featured similar messages Wednesday. A banner atop the page reads: “Democrats have shut down the government,” followed by a timer tracking the amount of time it’s been since both parties failed to reach an agreement to continue funding the country.
Above that, an animated banner reads, “Democrat Shutdown: Democrats in Their Own Words.” That banner links out to another White House page titled “Live News” that features a running feed of edited comments from top Democratic lawmakers about the continuing resolution. (To be clear, the feed is not live, and it does not feature news.)
The Department of Housing and Urban Development showed a similar banner on its web page Tuesday, attacking the “radical left” for refusing a funding plan that would advance Trump’s agenda.
“The Radical Left are going to shut down the government and inflict massive pain on the American people unless they get their $1.5 trillion wish list of demands,” the notice read. “The Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”
Donald Sherman, the executive director and chief counsel of the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, told HuffPost Tuesday that it was “hard to imagine a worse message from a government agency” than the one delivered by HUD.
“But this is certainly consistent with an administration that makes enemies lists,” Sherman told the outlet.
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