Legal Experts Call Trump’s Response To The Shutdown ‘Extremely Alarming’

The Trump administration’s response to the ongoing government shutdown shows its disregard for free speech and disrespect for federal workers, legal experts told HuffPost.

On Wednesday, an email from leaders of the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Administration informed staff they were required to use an out-of-office message blaming Democrats for blocking the passage of a “clean continuing resolution” and shutting down the government.

Democrats do not support the “clean continuing resolution” because they want to cancel the nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts made law earlier this year and because they want to extend subsidies available through Affordable Care Act exchanges. The latter is their main bargaining chip to negotiate the reopening of the government with Republicans.

Republicans have twisted these demands into assertions — including via messaging on official government websites — that Democrats shuttered the government because they are hell-bent on giving free health care to immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. (Federal law already prohibits unauthorized immigrants from accessing health care through programs like the Affordable Care Act.)

As one federal worker told HuffPost, being required to respond to emails with the message felt like “coercing subordinates to engage in political activity.”

A law known as the Hatch Act prohibits political activities for federal or civil service employees. The whole point of the 1939 law is to prevent government workforces from descending into partisan clubhouses.

It seems the Trump administration is making “an attempt to get as close to the line of running afoul of the Hatch Act and other ethical laws without actually stepping over it,” Joe Spielberger, senior policy counsel at the Project on Government Oversight, told HuffPost.

“These types of agency communications are extremely alarming,” Spielberger said, referencing the “required” out-of-office emails and the messaging writ large on agency websites.

But although the administration’s conduct appears to go against “the spirit of the law,” Spielberger said, it may stop just short of violating it, on a “technicality.”

“My understanding of that technicality, and where I think agencies are trying to be deliberate and sneaky about their messaging, is like this: an overt violation would be using [the email messaging system] to say, ‘this is why we need to vote Democrats out of office,’ or referring to a particular political party. On the flip side, with messaging that just mentions congressional Democrats, but doesn’t really put the blame on them for the situation, that’s a bit of a grayer area. On its face, it seems to be advocating for or against a political party, but that’s where the nuance is,” Spielberger said.

The Hatch Act forbids the knowing encouragement or discouragement of the political activity of people you work with.

“The bottom line, really, is that this is agencies using taxpayer funds to advance a political agenda, and especially in this case, assuming employees really are being required to send out these messages, it is agencies coercing them into using their positions to engage in overt political speech,” Spielberger said.

When it comes to free speech and federal workers, the First Amendment has its limits.

Federal employees don’t give up their right to free speech, but they can still be punished if what they say is deemed an interference in their duties or the agency’s operations, according to the American Civil Liberties Union. A free speech flow chart created by the ACLU highlights the delicate balance of interests: Agencies can enforce their own standards, sometimes even if speech is protected.

Federal agencies call the shots on approved and unapproved language, which is how the Trump administration has been able to direct the removal of language at federal institutions that it considers “diversity, equity and inclusion” or climate change initiatives. But rules enforced by the Office for Government Ethics still apply, according to Joanne B. Ciulla, a professor of ethics and the director of the Institute of Ethical Leadership at Rutgers Business School.

Ciulla doesn’t think there is “any ambiguity” in whether the HHS directive to use a specific out-of-office message runs afoul of the Hatch Act.

But that law, like all others, is only as good as those willing to enforce it.

“The Hatch Act has gone down the hatch,” Ciulla said.

For now, however, the government watchdog group Public Citizen is trying to see the law enforced: The group announced Thursday it has filed seven Hatch Act complaints against the administration for “explicitly partisan messaging” put up on homepages for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Department of Justice, the Food and Drug Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, the Office of Management and Budget, the Department of Agriculture and the White House. Similar complaints were already filed against the Small Business Administration and the Department of Housing and Human Services.

“The Trump administration is violating the Hatch Act with reckless abandon — using taxpayer dollars to plaster partisan screeds on every government webpage they can get their hands on,” Greg Holman, a government ethics expert with Public Citizen, said in a statement Thursday. “They must not be allowed to continue this behavior unchecked.”

Ciulla said the messaging to employees also illustrates the Trump administration’s attempted “intimidation” of government workers.

“Maybe people who are gung-ho and believe this is why there is a lapse [in government funding] don’t mind,” she said. “But for someone who doesn’t think that is the case, aren’t they expressing something they don’t believe in? It’s absolutely compelled speech.”

This “compelled speech” erodes public trust.

“You want to trust they are public servants there to serve your interest, not give their political views,” Ciulla said.

Demonstrators march down Pennsylvania Avenue during the final leg of the We Are America March on Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington, D.C. The 160-mile march from Philadelphia to the nation's capital was organized to promote civic engagement and protest perceived threats to democracy.

MEHMET ESER via Getty Images

The hypocrisy federal workers find themselves steeped in is rich.

“If the roles were reversed and employees were sending these messages on their own, we would definitely expect Hatch Act complaints and investigations against them,” Spielberger said.

Any deviation from Trump’s position seems to fall into the “war from within” category.

Ciulla cited philosopher Immanuel Kant’s golden rule-esque theory that to truly have fairness, people must act on the principle they want everyone else to act on.

If rules or principles only apply to one group, Ciulla said, “that’s when you know something is rotten in Denmark.”

Between her years teaching ethics to high-level government officials and her personal experience with the civil service — Ciulla’s father worked for the Social Security Administration for 35 years — the professor said she has never seen nor heard such a “radical” departure in the way government agencies are run.

“I’m glad he’s not around to see this,” she said of her father. “What makes America great is our civil service. These are treasured parts of our system, and we’re degrading something important to the well-being and prosperity of our country … we’re watching an emerging autocracy, and probably one of the worst parts of this is, it degrades people who are of good will and care about the public good.”