2026年7月14日 美国东部时间凌晨5:00 / 《华盛顿邮报》
一名参议院资深民主党人已请求展开调查，以查明这位卫生部长是否违反了禁止政治任命官员试图影响选举的法律。
记者：丹·戴蒙德与艾萨克·阿恩斯多夫
一名参议院资深民主党人援引《华盛顿邮报》的报道，请求调查卫生和公众服务部部长小罗伯特·F·肯尼迪是否违反了旨在防止政治任命官员干预选举的联邦法律。
参议院财政委员会首席民主党议员、参议员罗恩·怀登（俄勒冈州民主党）周一向特别 counsel 办公室提交了投诉。该办公室是一个准司法独立机构，负责执行《哈奇法案》和其他公务员制度规则。
《哈奇法案》禁止联邦雇员在工作期间参与政治活动。首届特朗普政府中有多名任命官员被认定违反了该法律。
唐纳德·特朗普总统此前曾嘲笑《哈奇法案》，并拒绝执行该特别顾问办公室的相关建议。
在怀登提交给特别顾问办公室代理主任贾米森·格里尔的投诉及附信中，他列举了肯尼迪鼓励艾奥瓦州的两名第三方候选人退出竞争激烈的国会众议院选举，以便共和党继续掌控国会的事例。
《邮报》获取了肯尼迪与其中一名候选人通话的音频，在通话中这位卫生部长表示，他将作为与白宫的联络人，并可以在候选人退出竞选的情况下为其提供帮助。第二名候选人也称，他接到了肯尼迪打来的类似电话。
怀登所在的委员会负责监督部分由肯尼迪领导的机构，他表示，这位内阁部长向候选人做出的提议“公然腐败”，违反了《哈奇法案》及其他法律。
“肯尼迪在6月11日的电话中向斯图尔特提出以联邦公职或其他个人利益作为交换条件，这种行为是《哈奇法案》明确禁止的，”怀登在写给格里尔的信中写道，这封信已分享给《邮报》。
白宫以及肯尼迪领导的卫生和公众服务部周一未回应有关肯尼迪与候选人通话以及通话曝光后他是否面临任何内部处分的置评请求。
特朗普在第一任期内曾嘲笑《哈奇法案》，2019年特别顾问办公室建议因特朗普高级顾问凯莉安·康威违反法律将其解职后，特朗普也对此置之不理。该办公室认定，康威以官方身份接受媒体采访时批评民主党总统候选人，并通过官方账号在推特上提及这些候选人。
特朗普无视该办公室的建议，留用了康威。
1939年起生效的《哈奇法案》不适用于总统——特朗普过去曾承认这一点，比如2020年他在白宫发表演讲接受共和党总统候选人提名时。
“根本不存在《哈奇法案》，因为它不适用于总统，”特朗普在2020年8月说道。
RFK Jr. faces Hatch Act complaint after intervening in congressional races
July 14, 2026 at 5:00 a.m. EDT / The Washington Post
A top Senate Democrat has requested an investigation into whether the health secretary broke a law that bars political appointees from trying to influence elections.
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. watches as President Donald Trump speaks at the White House on Sept. 22, 2025. (Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)
By Dan Diamond and Isaac Arnsdorf
A top Senate Democrat has requested an investigation into whether Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. broke a federal law intended to prevent political appointees from interfering in elections, citing Washington Post reporting.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, filed a complaint Monday with the Office of Special Counsel, a quasi-judicial independent agency that administers the Hatch Act and other civil service rules.
The Hatch Act bars federal employees from engaging in political activity in the course of their work. Several Trump appointees in the first administration were found to have broken the law.
President Donald Trump has previously derided the Hatch Act and declined to enforce the special counsel’s recommendations.
In his complaint and accompanying letter to Jamieson Greer, the acting head of the special counsel’s office, Wyden cited examples of Kennedy encouraging a pair of third-party candidates in Iowa to drop out of contested House races so Republicans could keep control of Congress.
The Post obtained audio of Kennedy’s call with one of the candidates, in which the health secretary suggested he would serve as a liaison with the White House and could help the candidate if he left the race. A second candidate has said he received a similar call from Kennedy.
Wyden, whose committee helps oversee some of the agencies led by Kennedy, said that the Cabinet secretary’s offers to the candidates were “brazenly corrupt” and violated the Hatch Act and other laws.
“The quid pro quo offer of federal employment or other personal gain that Kennedy extended to Stewart on the June 11 phone call is conduct expressly prohibited by the Hatch Act,” Wyden wrote in his letter to Greer, which was shared with The Post.
The White House and the Department of Health and Human Services, which Kennedy leads, did not respond Monday to questions about Kennedy’s conversations with the candidates and whether he faced any internal repercussions once the calls came to light.
Trump mocked the Hatch Act in his first term, including after the Office of Special Counsel in 2019 recommended that Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, be removed from her post for violating the law. Conway had criticized Democratic presidential candidates while she was being interviewed by media outlets in her official capacity and tweeted about the candidates from her official account, the office concluded.
Trump ignored the office’s recommendation and kept Conway in her post.
The Hatch Act, which has been law since 1939, does not apply to the president — a fact that Trump has acknowledged in the past, including when he decided to accept the Republican nomination for president in 2020 by giving a speech at the White House.
“There is no Hatch Act because it doesn’t pertain to the president,” Trump said in August 2020.
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