When Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro praised his boss, President Joe Biden, and threw shade at former President Donald Trump before an audience in London and then again to a British television network last year, he broke a federal law, an investigation found. Del Toro’s comments violated the Hatch Act, a federal law that prevents U.S. government employees from engaging in political activity while on duty, by making comments in January that supported President Joe Biden and criticized former President Donald Trump in January, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel has determined.
The office, a federal agency that enforces workforce rules and protections that govern all federal employees, issued a report to Biden on Thursday. The office investigated remarks made by Del Toro in a Jan. 25 speech at the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London and in an interview with the BBC afterwards. At the time, Biden was the presumed Democratic nominee for president in this year’s election.
The Hatch Act generally forbids government employees from publicly expressing political views — particularly on who should win elections — while on duty in their government jobs. The act is not a criminal law, which could lead to jail time or other criminal penalties. Instead, those found to have violated its rules could be sanctioned with civil penalties by the Merit Systems Protection Board, a federal board that oversees government employees.
The counsel’s office determined that Del Toro clearly expressed that he hoped Biden would defeat Trump this November, the report says.
“His statements were not mere discussions of policy differences between Presidents Biden and Trump unconnected to the upcoming November presidential election,” the special counsel found. “Secretary Del Toro’s statements with overt reference to the election conveyed electoral support for one candidate and opposition to another candidate, and thus, constituted political activity. Accordingly, because he made these statements while acting in his official capacity, he violated the Hatch Act.”
Deputy Pentagon Sabrina Singh told reporters on Thursday that the Defense Department is reviewing the report on Del Toro, adding that Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks signed a memo earlier this year that stressed the importance of adhering to federal law and Defense Department policies that govern what political activities service members and civilian personnel can engage in.
“In the memo, it talks about the right to exercise our right to vote and participate in government, but it also highlights that as public servants, we uphold DoD’s longstanding tradition of remaining apolitical as we carry out our responsibilities,” Sing said at a Pentagon news conference. “It’s important that we maintain the trust and confidence of the American people, which requires us to avoid any action that could imply the support of any political party, candidate, or campaign.”
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During the question-and-answer portion of his Jan. 25 speech, Del Toro was asked about concerns among attendees that the United States would develop a more isolationist foreign policy.
As part of his reply, Del Toro said that both the United States and the world “need the mature leadership of President Biden,” the U.S. Office of Special Counsel report says.
“I did not support the President of the United States to become president, Commander-in-Chief, because I wanted a job,” Del Toro said, according to the report. “I supported him personally, because he is an individual of highest character, with the intelligence and the experience and the perseverance, to do the job, that not just the U.S. demands, but that the entire world, quite frankly, embraces. He is the protector of democracy around the globe.”
“We cannot afford to have a president who aligns himself with autocratic dictators and rulers whose interpretation of democratic principles is suspicious [at] best,” Del Toro continued. “And who, quite frankly, confuses presidential candidates with our former speaker of the house, for that matter. And so, I’m confident that the American people will step up to the plate come November and support President Biden for a second term as our Commander-in-Chief, so that we can continue to work together as free democratic countries respect each other around the globe.”
Following the speech, Del Toro was interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg of BBC News Sunday, who asked him why he said that he was worried about the prospect of Trump returning to the presidency.
“Well, I said that because it’s my strong conviction that President Biden has provided the mature leadership, both in the United States and stabilizing our economy, which was faced by many challenges early as he took office – rebuilding that economy, and building the national security relationships with our allies and partners around the globe, so that we could all benefit together economically and otherwise. And it is my humble opinion that the United States deserves that continued leadership in the way of President Biden. And I think the world does as well, too,” Del Toro said.
When asked specifically why he was worried about Trump being reelected, Del Toro said that both Republican and Democrat candidates had long espoused the United States’ core value of protecting freedom and democracy.
“And when you have someone who doesn’t align to those core principles, it makes you wonder, you know, should you be supporting that individual?” Del Toro said.
Del Toro also suggested that Trump is suspicious about democracy, and he said global security would suffer without “the benefit of the mature leadership that President Biden has provided the United States and the world.”
‘Spontaneous’ answers did not name Trump
On Feb. 1, Del Toro sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Special Counsel explaining that his comments during the BBC interview were meant to focus on national security, but in hindsight he believes he should not have made specific references to the two candidates for president.
Del Toro also said he was not prepared for Kuenssberg’s “spontaneous” questions about Trump, the report found. He also argued that he never mentioned Trump in his responses to her, and his comments about people who support dictators instead of democracy were in reference to any presidential candidate, not specifically Trump – an argument that the special counsel’s office did not find credible.
He also said his answer to the question following his speech were simply a statement of fact about his confidence in Biden, not an attempt to encourage others to vote for him, but the special counsel’s office was not swayed by his reasoning.
“OSC [U.S. Office of Special Counsel] recognizes and appreciates that Secretary Del Toro self-reported his conduct during his BBC News Sunday interview, but this fact alone should not absolve him,” the report found. “As the head of the U.S. Department of the Navy, Secretary Del Toro had direct access to the agency’s ethics officials, and while participating in agency Hatch Act briefings, he was advised against engaging in the type of conduct he exhibited while acting in his official capacity.”
Responding to the finding, Del Toro’s attorney Michael R. Bromwich wrote in an Aug. 26 letter to the special counsel’s office that its determination that the secretary had violated the Hatch Act should be withdrawn, in part because it is a “mechanical and inappropriate application of the rules prohibiting the involvement of federal officials in political activities.”
“It fails to appreciate the spontaneous and unpremeditated nature of the comments and, most importantly, the setting in which his comments were made — in another country to members of the UK press corps, and without any evidence that any eligible American voter other than members of his own staff and the US Embassy staff were in attendance or ever became aware of his remarks,” Bromwich wrote.
Bromwich also argued that Del Toro’s comments were “spontaneous and unscripted,” and the British attendees at his speech as well as the BBC reporter might have interpreted any comments that Del Toro made that fell short of a full-throated endorsement of Biden as showing a lack of support for the president.
But Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger wrote he found the points made in Del Toro’s defense “irrelevant” to the finding that he violated the Hatch Act. He also wrote that he was troubled by “the Secretary’s refusal to take responsibility for the violation.”
“Despite my concerns with the Secretary’s conduct and his response to our findings, I acknowledge that one can imagine more serious violations of the Hatch Act,” Dellinger wrote. “I admire and appreciate his military service and continuing commitment to public service, and I am glad that his violation appears to be an isolated episode. Ultimately, I hope the Secretary will take responsibility for his mistake.”