The White House has refused to clarify whether it will return any political donations made to President Joe Biden by disgraced FTX founder and former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.
It also won’t comment on whether other elected officials should return similar donations, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
In response to questions regarding the status of the millions of dollars in political donations made by Bankman-Fried, potentially with stolen customer funds, during a Tuesday press conference, Jean-Pierre said that she is barred from publicly discussing the subject, or the president’s views on it, due to provisions of the Hatch Act of 1939.
The Hatch Act, signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, is primarily intended to prevent non-elected executive branch employees from making openly political statements. Most clear-cut violations of the law have involved heads of federal agencies endorsing political candidates or attempting to run for political office themselves.
Notably, the president is fully exempt from the Hatch Act, as is the vice president, as both politicians are elected officials who routinely endorse candidates and participate in partisan politics.
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