Conservative Group Calls for Ethics Investigation into Sen. Hassan's Chief of Staff

A Conservative group sent a letter to Senate Ethics Committee Chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) and Ranking Member Sen. James Lankford (R-OK), exclusively shown to Breitbart News, to investigate recent comments reportedly made by Sen. Maggie Hassan’s (D-NH) chief of staff about campaign issues during an official meeting.

The Bull Moose Project, a 501(c)(4) organization that identifies and trains the next generation of conservative populist leaders and policies, recently sent a letter to the two senators who sit on top of the U.S. Senate Select Ethics Committee in regards to Hassan’s chief of staff, Marc Goldberg, for bringing up campaign issues that could be detrimental to Hassan during an official chiefs of staff meeting reported by Politico earlier in May.

Goldberg’s comments specifically discussed the campaign implications of a vote on the bipartisan American Innovation and Choice Online Act.

The letter indicated that Hassan is up for reelection in a competitive race in November and the chief of staff “cited the tech antitrust bill as an example of a potentially controversial vote that senators shouldn’t be forced to take just months out from the midterms,” the letter stated.

Politico’s Adam Cancryn and Emily Birnbaum wrote that after speaking to multiple people familiar with the caucus-wide chief of staff call, Goldberg raised the issue of the bill “as an example of a potentially controversial vote that senators shouldn’t be forced to take just months out from the midterms.”

The letter points to 31 U.S.C. § 1301(a) from the Senate Ethics memo stating,  “No official resources (e.g., Senate space, equipment, staff time) may be used to conduct campaign activities.” Bull Moose Project added that Goldberg, while on the chief of staff’s call, appeared to be acting in his government role and in a government setting while using government resources in a way intended to benefit his boss’s reelection campaign.

The memo noted that Senate employees, such as Goldberg, are allowed to work or volunteer for their bosses’ campaigns, but they are only allowed to do so “on their own time, outside of Senate space, and without using Senate resources.”

Bull Moose Project’s president, Aiden Buzzetti, stated in the letter that “we are facing enormous problems as a country, and Americans have a right to expect government employees to do the work of government in addressing those problems” and “not idling away their time musing and focusing on elections on the government dime.”

Letter to Select Committee … by Jacob Bliss

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. Write to him at jbliss@breitbart.com or follow him on Twitter @JacobMBliss.