Senate Democrats are requesting an investigation into what they say is “partisan messaging” that the Trump administration used on official government websites during the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Adam Schiff of California and others are urging the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) to launch a probe into whether the Trump administration crossed a line and broke federal laws due to messages posted on official government websites that pinned the blame on Democrats for the shutdown.
“Some agencies’ announcements appeared to include nothing more than partisan messaging and lacked a connection to official business,” lawmakers wrote in a letter, sent to GAO Nov. 9.
Specifically, the lawmakers pointed to messaging posted on the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s website, which stated on its website during the shutdown: “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 Trump administration wants to keep the government open for the American people.”
As a result, the lawmakers questioned whether the statement and others from separate agencies violated federal law, which bars using federal funds for “publicity or propaganda purposes.”
“Longstanding federal appropriations law prohibits the executive branch from using federal funds ‘for publicity or propaganda purposes,’ including for purely partisan materials,” the lawmakers wrote in their letter. “Federal law also prohibits agencies from using any appropriated funding, directly or indirectly, to generate publicity designed to influence Congress in supporting or opposing legislation or appropriations.”
But Hans von Spakovsky, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation think tank, said that Democrats are seeking a distraction from their role in the shutdown.
“This is an absurd claim and just a publicity stunt by Democrats desperate to push attention away from their failures,” Spakovsky said in a Friday statement to Fox News Digital. “Blaming Democrats for the shutdown was absolutely accurate since they voted more than a dozen times to keep the government shutdown. Truth is an absolute defense to any claim of partisan messaging.”
