Hatch Act Complaint — Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach; Department ofthe Treasury official TikTok video posted October 14, 2026
October 17th, 2026
THE STEADY STATE
October 17, 2026
U.S. Office of Special Counsel
Hatch Act Unit
1730 M Street, N.W., Suite 218
Washington, D.C. 20036-4505
Filed via electronic mail to: hatchact@osc.gov
Re: Hatch Act Complaint — Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach; Department of the Treasury official TikTok video posted October 14, 2026
To Whom It May Concern:
I write on behalf of The Steady State to ask the U.S. Office of Special Counsel to review conduct by Treasurer of the United States Brandon Beach under the Hatch Act, 5 U.S.C. §§ 7321–7326. The Steady State is an organization of more than 450 former national security, intelligence, diplomatic, military, law enforcement, and homeland security officials.
The conduct.
On Wednesday, October 14, 2026 — twenty days before the November 3 general election — the Department of the Treasury’s official TikTok account, @ustreasury, posted a video in which Treasurer Beach, identified on screen by his official title, promotes the semiquincentennial $1 coin bearing President Trump’s portrait. In it, he says, holding up the coin:
“This is the Trump dollar coin. It’ll be in the banks next month. And I want to challenge you to go get a roll of Trump dollar coins next month. And then I want you to go to your favorite liberal coffee shop with your Trump dollar coins, buy a cup of coffee, and watch their heads explode. They will not like it, but I love it. And I love this president and I love this coin.”
The video opens with Treasurer Beach entering a building whose entry mat bears the Treasury seal and the words “United States Mint,” beside a dollar-coin exchange machine. As he says “liberal coffee shop,” the video cuts to stock footage of a barista; as he says “watch their heads explode,” it shows an explosion graphic. On October 15, Treasurer Beach reposted the video (archived) on his X account, which displays his official title, with the caption “I love this president and I love this coin.” The same day, quoting a Fox Business post headlined “Treasury Official Urges Americans to Spend Trump $1 Coins at ‘Liberal Coffee Shops,’” he wrote (archived): “I can’t wait to see the new Trump $1 coins making their way into coffee shops and communities across the country.” The video was reported by Fox Business (archived) and Newsweek (archived).
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel’s own standard.
Less than three weeks before this video was posted, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel issued its Hatch Act Assessment and Advisory: Partisan Agency Communications During the 2025 Lapse in Appropriations (Sept. 25, 2026) (archived). The advisory states that its analysis also applies to complaints about agency communications that name a political party but are unrelated to the shutdown. Id. at 1 n.2. It reaffirms that “[a] communication need not contain express electoral advocacy” to constitute political activity, id. at 7, and it directs the analysis to four factors: whether the communication had “a clear, contemporaneous non-electoral purpose”; its timing, particularly “its proximity to a relevant election”; its tone, “including whether it used inflammatory or insulting language”; and its dissemination, “including the intended audience and the scale of distribution.” References to a party that are “gratuitous, made close to an election, and framed as an attack on a party,” the advisory concludes, are likely to be political activity. Id. at 9. The advisory adds that “the derogatory tone and broad dissemination of some communications might weigh in favor of finding that their purpose went beyond influencing legislation to affecting the outcome of future elections, a purpose the Hatch Act prohibits.” Id. Neither reason the U.S. Office of Special Counsel gave for closing the shutdown matters applies here. The advisory was issued before this video was posted, so the Department could not have relied on the superseded guidance; and this complaint concerns a single, identified communication whose review would not tax the Office’s “limited resources.” Id. at 1.
Taken together, these factors warrant review. Promoting a commemorative coin is a legitimate purpose, but the instruction to take the coin to a “liberal” business to make “their heads explode” serves no part of it; it is gratuitous. The video was published twenty days before a federal general election. Its language is a taunt aimed at people identified by their politics. And it was distributed publicly through an official Department account carrying the Treasurer’s official title; as of October 16, 2026, the TikTok post showed more than 52,000 likes and 34,000 shares, and Treasurer Beach’s repost on X more than 722,000 views. The Hatch Act exists, as the advisory notes, “to prevent the use of federal power and taxpayer resources to shape electoral outcomes.” Id. at 7.
The administration’s own usage supports reading “liberal” as a reference to the Democratic Party.
The video does not say “Democrat,” but the administration’s own official communications use the two words interchangeably. On September 2, 2026, the White House published “Ten Times Extreme Liberal Democrats in Congress Put Their Dangerous Agenda Ahead of the American People” (archived), which uses the phrase “Extreme Liberal Democrats” throughout and refers to “the Extreme Liberal Democrat Party.” Two days later, the President linked that release (archived) under the words “The Extreme Liberal Dumocrats are OUT OF THEIR MINDS!” The Department of the Treasury has done the same: its December 10, 2025 press release “Liberal States Blocking Historic Tax Cuts for Hardworking Americans and Workers” (archived) describes the same jurisdictions both as “Democrat led states” and as “liberal strongholds.” During the 2025 lapse in appropriations, the Department’s website blamed the shutdown on “[t]he radical left,” and the Department of Veterans Affairs’ press secretary told reporters (archived) that “[r]adical liberals in Congress are trying to shut down the government.” Read against that usage, an instruction from a Treasury official, on a Treasury account, to provoke “liberal[s]” weeks before an election is reasonably understood as directed at the opposing party.
The message promotes the governing party’s leader while taunting its opponents.
In a single official communication, Treasurer Beach promotes a coin bearing the portrait of the President, a Republican, declares “I love this president,” and urges viewers to use that coin to make “liberal[s]” react with anger, twenty days before an election in which control of Congress is at stake. Political activity includes activity directed toward the success or failure of a political party. 5 C.F.R. § 734.101. Promoting a commemorative coin is a legitimate official function; joining that promotion to praise of the governing party’s leader and a taunt aimed at its opponents, on an official account weeks before a federal election, is the kind of gratuitous, election-proximate attack the September 2026 advisory identifies as likely political activity.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel has applied this standard before.
In 2023 the U.S. Office of Special Counsel found that then–White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre violated the Hatch Act by referring to “mega MAGA Republican officials” in official briefings before the 2022 midterm elections. It concluded that, although she “never expressly instructed viewers to vote for or against Republican candidates,” the “timing, frequency, and content” of the references “established that she made those references to generate opposition to Republican candidates,” and that the statements, made in her official capacity, used official authority to affect an election. That matter is not a close factual match; it is cited for how the U.S. Office of Special Counsel drew an inference from timing, content, and official capacity. The same rule should apply when the label is aimed at the other party.
This complaint concerns a single communication, not the repeated references at issue in that matter. We note that difference. But the September 2026 advisory does not identify repetition as a prerequisite, and this communication was posted publicly on an official Department account.
Questions for the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
First, whether the video is political activity under 5 C.F.R. § 734.101, applying the factors in the September 2026 advisory. Second, whether Treasurer Beach used his official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election, in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 7323(a)(1) and 5 C.F.R. § 734.302. Third, whether the activity occurred on duty or in the workplace, in violation of 5 U.S.C. § 7324(a) and 5 C.F.R. § 734.306 — a question that reaches both Treasurer Beach and the Department employees who scripted, recorded, approved, and posted the video, which appears to have been recorded in a Department facility.
Requests.
We respectfully ask that the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (1) open a file and review this matter; (2) ask the Department of the Treasury to preserve all drafts, scripts, approvals, and communications concerning the video, together with its reach and engagement data, including any communications with the White House, a political party, or a campaign; (3) advise the Department whether the video may remain posted while the matter is reviewed; and (4) provide a written disposition. Please confirm receipt of this complaint.
Respectfully,
Steven A. Cash
Executive Director
The Steady State
Bethesda, MD 20816
(212) 685-9660