the dicknbush regime played in the gray area of the hatch act
it would be pointless to seek prosecution as the only ones who would be nailed would be the non-political civil servants who were doing as they were instructed by their supervisors - the political appointees - who, as you will find below, enjoy a special dispensation relative to their partisan political involvement, and that any abuse is punishable by the president alone
here, is the only overt violation, where the internal records confirm reimbursement monies were due from the campaign because of political activities engaged, and those monies were never paid
the penalty should be to require payment of the amounts reflected by those administration documents
The Hatch Act: An Overview -- GovExec.com
in reading this thread it appears many are unfamiliar with the latitude provided to
political appointees to engage in partisan political activities. they can - and do - campaign while being paid a federal salary, during work hours, from the federal work place
and that is acceptable under the law, as it is presently constructed. it gives a huge advantage to the incumbent
to have the taxpayer pay for their partisan politicking, all the political appointee has to do is schedule an official federal business activity where they want to go and federal travel dollars pay for it. that can be a five minute observation followed by travel to a partisan event. because they conducted official business on the trip they have satisfied the provisions of the law
notice that the office of special counsel, ordinarily charged with prosecuting hatch act violations, can only make recommendations to the president when the violation pertains to a political appointee ... someone that president appointed
i imagine Obama could now be the one to initiate prosecution, but we see he has been inclined to allow the past regime to skate on other matters which are substantially more important
can't imagine that he would pursue this
the only ones who would be hurt are the civil servants - the career employees who were not politically appointed and who do not receive special hatch act dispensations. their violations would have been likely due to their following the orders of the political appointee. how fair would it be to prosecute them for following orders?