Senator John Thune (R-SD) on Wednesday raised possible legal concerns when asked about President Trump potentially accepting the Republican presidential nomination at the White House.
“Is that even legal?” Thune, the Senate Republican Whip, asked when reporters questioned him about Republican National Convention planners thinking about having Trump accept his party’s nomination for a second term on the South Lawn of the White House, according to The Hill.
“I assume that’s not something that you could do. I assume there’s some Hatch Act issues or something,” he said. “I don’t know the answer to that and I haven’t heard him say that but I think anything to do with federal property would seem to me to be problematic.”
As noted by The Hill, “the Hatch Act prohibits partisan political activity by a federal employee in a government room or building or any room or building occupied in the discharge of official duties, according to a memo posted by the Department of Interior’s ethics office.”
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Thune’s comments come hours after Trump said that accepting the nomination at the White House would “be the easiest from the standpoint of security.”
“We’re thinking about it. It would be the easiest from the standpoint of security,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends” when asked about a report in The Washington Post. “We’re thinking about doing it from the White House because there’s no movement and it’s easy.”
Trump said he would “probably” deliver the speech live from the White House.
