By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday called for an investigation into a Trump administration video airing at some airports that blames Democrats in Congress for an ongoing government shutdown and its impact on aviation.
Senator Maria Cantwell asked the Office of Special Counsel to investigate the video featuring Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, saying it appears to violate a law known as the Hatch Act, which is meant to insulate government services from partisan politics.
A rising number of major airports have opted not to air the video over the partisan nature of the video including in Atlanta, Seattle, Indianapolis, New York and Las Vegas, Cantwell noted.
The video features Noem saying, “Democrats in Congress refuse to fund the federal government, and because of this, many of our operations are impacted and most of our TSA employees are working without pay.”
DHS and the Office of Special Counsel did not immediately comment on the letter.
“Secretary Noem’s video can only be reasonably interpreted as a partisan message intended to misleadingly malign the Trump Administration’s political opponents (and) convince Americans to blame ‘Democrats in Congress’ for the ongoing government shutdown, and influence their future votes,” Cantwell’s letter said.
Democratic lawmakers have refused to vote for a Republican bill that would provide stopgap government funding because it does not include funds to subsidize health insurance for low-income Americans.
Democrats and Republicans have blamed each other for the shutdown and the impact on aviation has been front and center.
More than 50,000 TSA officers are working without pay and have received a partial paycheck. They will miss their first full paycheck later this week.
TSA says despite the shutdown that security screening times remain low and the Friday beginning of the three-day Columbus Day weekend was the 6th busiest day in TSA’s history.
“The longer the shutdown lasts, the harder this gets on folks,” TSA said Thursday in an email to aviation stakeholders Tuesday, including guidance on acceptance of donations during the shutdown for TSA workers.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama, Alexandra Hudson)
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