Oops.
Julian Castro
Julián Castro, the secretary of Housing and Urban Development and rumored Democratic vice presidential prospect, violated a law prohibiting federal employees from politicking on the job when he commented on the presidential election in an April interview with Katie Couric, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel said Monday.
Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio, praised Hillary Clinton as the “most experienced, thoughtful and prepared candidate for president that we have this year” and described Donald Trump as unfit for the office in an interview with Couric for Yahoo News on April 4.
The special counsel found that those remarks violated the federal Hatch Act because Castro had given the interview in his “official capacity” as HUD secretary, OSC’s Carolyn N. Lerner wrote to President Barack Obama in a letter referring the counsel’s findings “for appropriate action.”
The report, dated June 24, notes that Castro told Couric he was “taking off my HUD hat” before he made his comments on Clinton and Trump. Still, the OSC concluded that his “statements during the interview impermissibly mixed his personal political views with official agency business,” according to Lerner’s letter.
According to the report, Castro testified that he believed at the time of the interview that his comments were in line with the law and never intended to violate it. He has since “reconsidered this position” on the appropriateness of the remarks and said he is “confident no similar blurring of roles will occur in the future,” the report says.
So much for that, it would seem, and right after his Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me debut, too. This doesn’t strike me as the worst thing anyone has ever done, but he shouldn’t have done it, and it is clear that it’s a distraction Clinton can’t afford and will surely want to avoid. In a universe where “Benghazi” and “Emailgate” were treated as the nothingburgers they are, it might be different, but we are not in that universe. PDiddie thinks this paves the way for Sen. Tim Kaine, and he certainly has a lot of mainstream support. I’m a fan of Tom Perez myself, but last I checked no one was asking me. Sorry, Julian. Get better legal advice before talking to the media next time. The Current has more.
In the grand scheme of things, I think his violation of the “Hatch Act” is small potatoes, and much ado about nothing. What I would prefer to see, is him charged as a conspirator in all the crimes his Section 8 horde unleashed on the suburbs of Dallas. Plano and Frisco crimes committed by his 8’ers happened because he unleashed those people in those areas….with predictable results.
Guess that Harvard Law School education didn’t quite do it for him on the legal advice front. And surely there is some sort of “Now That You Are A Cabinet Secretary” orientation he was given? Must have fallen asleep during that.