President Donald Trump may make yet another move to obliterate longstanding norms and the separation of politics from matters of state by accepting the GOP nomination for president and delivering his convention speech, all televised across the nation, live, from the vaunted South Lawn of the White House.
“Republican National Convention planners are considering the White House South Lawn,” The Washington Post reports.
It is yet another unprecedented move, one that fits in well with Trump’s usurpation of the power and trappings of the Oval Office for personal and political gain, and his equating of the Office of the Presidency with himself.
“Every White House staff member who participates in this violates the Hatch Act,” law professor and former chief White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter says.
The Hatch Act “does not apply to ‘rooms in the White House or in the residence of the Vice President, which are part of the residence area or which are not regularly used solely in the discharge of official duties,'” the Post notes.
The New York Times reported Monday the interior of the White House is also being considered by the RNC.