With the House Select Committee on Jan. 6 busy issuing flurries of subpoenas, it’s easy to forget that they’re not the only game in town when it comes to investigations of Donald Trump and his associates.  There’s the ongoing investigation in New York state, as well as Manhattan and Westchester County. There’s the still unresolved case of Rudy Giuliani, whose offices were raided back on Apr. 28.

And there’s a special federal investigation opened back in October into how the Trump White House wadded up the Hatch Act and used it to wipe … whatever needed wiping. 

After months of investigation, The Washington Post now reports that “at least” 13 senior Trump officials have been found to violate the Hatch Act, illegally mixing campaign and government events. This wasn’t just a matter of Trump telling people to disregard the Act, though it was clear that he did. This was, according to the report: “what appeared to be a taxpayer-funded campaign apparatus within the upper echelons of the executive branch.”

Trump didn’t just mix campaign events with government events. He turned the government into a branch of his campaign.

Repeatedly during Trump’s time in office, cabinet members and other White House officials mingled campaign events with what were supposed to be government activities. That included Betsy DeVos, who attacked President Joe Biden in a Fox News appearance, which she then promoted at the Department of Education. But that was only one of multiple incidents. The Office of Special Counsel determined that Kellyanne Conway was a repeat offender back in 2019. Nikki Haley got involved in the game two years before using her official Twitter account to promote Republican candidates. 

But the biggest offender was Trump himself. Trump campaigned from the White House briefing room. He campaigned from the Oval Office. By the summer of 2020, the width and breadth of Hatch Act violations by Team Trump were genuinely “breathtaking in the contempt for the law.” That included Trump delivering his speech to the Republican National Convention from the White House grounds, in cooperation with a whole cast of supposed government officials who mingled items as solemn as a naturalization ceremony for new American citizens with promoting Trump and the Republican Party.

Former Sec. of State Mike Pompeo went so far as to deliver his RNC speech while on a supposed diplomatic mission to Jerusalem. That speech from Pompeo earned him a special mention in the Office of Special Counsel report, which cited Pompeo’s speech as a particularly flagrant example of “flouting the law.” Pompeo even edited the rules of the State Department to write in the new policy explicitly allowing him to engage in partisan political activities.

The report also concluded that the impetus for Pompeo’s violation “originated within the White House” and possibly straight from Trump. In any case, it was a prime example of Trump’s “willingness to manipulate government business for partisan political ends.”

While there were some investigations of these violations during Trump’s period in office, the OSC notes that Trump and his officials failed to “provide the good faith cooperation necessary” to ensure compliance and enforce the rules. 

In conclusion, the OSC received hundreds of reports of Hatch Act violations by Trump officials. On investigation, at least 13 officials violated the Act one or more times. It also reports that it sought to obtain a refund of government funds used in political events, which it didn’t get.

So what will happen now to all these officials? Absolutely nothing. Oh, but also … nothing.

That’s because the way the Act is written, “the president in office at the time is the only person who can take action to fire or reprimand his political appointees when they act illegally.” Meaning that the Act creates a system where the person who benefits most from violation of the law is the person in charge of enforcing the law, and no one can come along later to do something, even when a review shows clear violations of the law.

Sure. That’ll work.

In addition to Pompeo and former acting homeland security chief Chad Wolf, who delivered a boot squarely in the face of the Act with that combo Trump rally naturalization ceremony, the complete list of those who should be shamed, fined, or jailed—but won’t be—includes:

Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette
Senior counselor Kellyanne Conway
White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farah
U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman
Senior adviser Jared Kushner
Press secretary Kayleigh McEnany
White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows
Senior adviser Stephen Miller
Deputy White House press secretary Brian Morgenstern
Vice Presidential chief of staff Marc Short
National security adviser Robert C. O’Brien