WASHINGTON — This summer, Attorney General Todd Blanche boasted about the drop in federal crime while stumping for the Republican candidate for New York governor at a rally headlined by President Trump.
In Michigan, Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, personally endorsed Mike Rogers, the Republican Senate candidate, arguing that Rogers would help advance his department’s work.
And in Alaska this month, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick stood with the president at a rally in which he noted the role of Senator Dan Sullivan, a Republican, in securing a natural gas pipeline.
Such appearances have become commonplace as nearly all of Trump’s top deputies fanned out to promote Republican candidates facing difficult election odds. But they have alarmed government ethics experts who say administration officials are running afoul of the Hatch Act, an 87-year-old law that limits how executive branch employees can participate in political activity.
In the past few months, at least nine of 15 Cabinet secretaries and several other senior Trump deputies have been formally accused of Hatch Act violations, such as using official government titles while engaging in campaign activities and using taxpayer funds to pay for political advertisements.
“We have not seen this level of violations in recent times,” said Kedric Payne, the head of ethics for the Campaign Legal Center, a nonpartisan watchdog group that recently filed a Hatch Act complaint against several White House and homeland security officials over three taxpayer-funded commercials promoting Trump. Its affiliated litigation arm, Campaign Legal Center Action, is one of the groups that is also suing the Trump administration over the ad campaign.
“Officials should not be using their titles or taxpayer resources to be involved in political campaigns, yet the Trump administration continues to increase activity that goes against the letter and the spirit of this principle,” Payne said. “Now it seems as though the administration can flood the zone with potential Hatch Act violations and not suffer any consequences until after the election.”
Representatives for the White House and government agencies contend that the complaints are politically motivated to hurt Republicans and that officials’ activities comply with the law.
The Hatch Act was intended to be a buffer against partisan politics influencing government operations. While the president and the vice president are exempt, all other civil employees of the executive branch are subject to its restrictions. Over the years, both Republicans and Democrats have been accused and found guilty of breaching the Hatch Act.
But government watchdogs contend Trump officials have been lax about observing that firewall during the 2026 midterm elections.
At the Alaska rally, Trump introduced Lutnick and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum by their official titles. Using those titles violates the Hatch Act, two nonprofit advocacy groups charged in a recent complaint. One of them, the Democracy Defenders Fund, was founded by a former Obama administration ethics official and Trump impeachment lawyer. The other is Reporters Without Borders, a press advocacy group. They stressed that the law forbids campaigning in an official capacity.
They also accused Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chair, of violating the law by telling the same rally crowd how Sullivan would continue to advance the agency’s work, even though he began his remarks by saying he was speaking in a personal capacity.
Representatives for the Commerce Department and the FCC did not respond to requests for comment. An Interior Department representative said Burgum spoke in a personal capacity, dismissing the complaint as baseless and politically motivated.
Democracy Defenders Fund has also accused Duffy of violating the Hatch Act by tying his personal endorsement of Rogers to the work of his department. And the Steady State, a group of former national security officials, has twice accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of doing the same while campaigning for candidates in Iowa and Kentucky. The group is challenging a decision by the Office of Special Counsel to close the Kentucky complaint without further action.
A representative for the Transportation Department said Duffy abides by all applicable ethics laws, rules and regulations. In a statement, a Pentagon spokesperson, Sean Parnell, said Hegseth’s appearances were “thoroughly vetted and cleared by lawyers” and did not violate the Hatch Act or any other statutes.
In the past, when senior government officials appeared to breach the Hatch Act, the Office of Special Counsel, established as an independent investigative agency, was more aggressive about condemning the conduct. During the Biden administration, when watchdog groups flagged that Marcia Fudge, the housing secretary, and Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, had used their official pulpit to make political statements, the office swiftly condemned the infractions, prompting the officials to apologize.
A spokesperson for the Office of Special Counsel declined to comment.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.