The Steady State Files Hatch Act Complaint Against Attorney General Blanche and FBI Director Patel Over Long Island Campaign-Style Event

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: September 4, 2026

Washington, D.C. — The Steady State, a nonpartisan organization of more than 430 former national security officials, today asked the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) to investigate whether Attorney General Todd Blanche and FBI Director Kash Patel violated the Hatch Act by appearing, under their official titles, as warm-up speakers at an August 14, 2026 event at the Nassau County Police Academy in Garden City, New York, headlined by President Trump and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, the Republican nominee for Governor of New York. The Associated Press described the event as “overwhelmingly a political one, with Trump lashing Democrats and promoting his record and his party’s candidates.” The organization also referred the use of Justice Department and FBI resources for the event to the Department’s Inspector General and transmitted both filings to the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section.

The event was billed as an official White House appearance on violent-crime reduction. From the stage, the President urged the audience to elect Mr. Blakeman and attacked Governor Kathy Hochul by name; three sitting members of Congress and two Republican House nominees also spoke. The Attorney General, sworn in four days earlier, identified himself as “attorney general of the United States” and praised “our great Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.” The FBI later posted Director Patel’s remarks on its official website.

The Hatch Act bars federal employees, Cabinet officers included, from using their official authority or influence to affect an election. The complaint asks OSC to determine whether the two officials used their official authority in a manner the Act forbids, and whether the Treasury paid for their participation in violation of the condition Congress attached to the exemption for Senate-confirmed appointees.

The referral to the Inspector General asks whether appropriated funds paid for the political component of the event, whether FBI channels were used to amplify it, and whether Department personnel coordinated with the White House political operation, Nassau County, or the Blakeman campaign, and asks that travel, funding, and planning records be preserved now. The transmittal to the Public Integrity Section asks that, because the Attorney General is himself a subject, any criminal evaluation proceed under the Department’s recusal and conflict procedures rather than under his supervision.

The Hatch Act exists to keep the machinery and prestige of federal law enforcement out of partisan elections. Whether the Attorney General and the FBI Director crossed that line is a question OSC exists to answer, and the public record requires no lengthy investigation to assemble. Nor is enforcement of the Act unusual: as Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington noted in an August 20 letter to the Special Counsel, OSC has recently resolved Hatch Act investigations involving “several lower level federal executive branch employees” while its investigations of senior administration appointees remain pending. The complaint asks only that the same standard be applied here, with the same dispatch. We have asked OSC to confirm receipt and say whether the complaint has been docketed for investigation.

The complaint, referral, and transmittal as filed are available at https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s7WeqO6IcCM7D10rFaQX5DWjH9p6FnrV/view?usp=share_link

Enclosures are available on request.

About The Steady State

The Steady State is an organization of more than 430 former national security professionals committed to defending American democracy from rising authoritarian threats. Its members include former ambassadors and senior State Department officials, senior CIA, Defense officials, FBI and DHS leaders, USAID and NSC staff, and senior congressional staff from both Republican and Democratic administrations.

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