Posted on 09/19/2017 10:54:17 AM PDT by John Semmens
The Democratic Coalition filed a complaint with the Office of Government Ethics alleging that Presidential Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders' suggestion that ESPN host Jemele Hill's tweet labeling the President "a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself with other white supremacists" might be a "fireable offense," broke the law.
Democratic Coalition chairman Jon Cooper insisted that "we cannot ignore the sinister implications of what the Trump Administration has done here. Mrs. Sanders contends she is entitled to express her opinion about the outrageous comments of Ms. Hill, but clearly her statement was intended to intimidate ESPN into firing one of its valued employees for merely expressing her opinion about Trump and his henchmen."
Nate Lerner, the Democratic Coalition's executive director, cast Sanders' words as "another example of the Trump White House's blatant disregard for the Constitution. A few months ago we had Kellyanne Conway urging people to buy Ivanka's clothing line, now this. It is of the utmost importance that we hold the Trump administration accountable for its illicit behavior. If Sanders doesn't go to jail over this it will be a dark day for our democratic institutions." The law Lerner has in mind calls for a fine, up to 15 years in prison, or both.
Whether ESPN could conceivably be frightened into a firing action it disagrees with based on comments made by a Trump Administration official seems dubious. Anti-Trump commentary has become an annoying and intrusive part of the network's sports broadcast coverage over the past year. The only employee ESPN has fired for expressing political views was former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling after he questioned the wisdom of laws forcing organizations to allow professed "transgendered" individuals to use whatever restroom or locker room they pleased despite their conflicting physical anatomy.
if you missed any of this week's other semi-news/semi-satire posts you can find them at...
http://www.gopbriefingroom.com/index.php/topic,281331.0.html
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