Federal Websites Are Blaming Democrats for the Shutdown — and Ethics Lawyers Say That Might Be Illegal

What started as a standard shutdown notice quickly morphed into a partisan pile-on. By midweek, banners across multiple federal websites declared that Democrats were to blame for the government going dark, with some agencies even feeding staff ready-made out-of-office messages pointing the finger at the “radical left.”

The first flare came hours before the shutdown, when Housing and Urban Development slapped a red pop-up on its homepage warning that “the radical left are going to shut down the government” unless they got a $1.5 trillion “wish list.” By Wednesday, the Department of Justice’s site carried a header reading “Democrats have shut down the government,” while the Agriculture Department told visitors the closure was “due to the Radical Left Democrat shutdown,” adding that President Donald Trump wanted to keep things open.

The message discipline extended into inboxes. The Small Business Administration circulated a template furlough autoresponder blaming Senate Democrats for blocking a “clean” funding bill. And inside the Department of Education, several civil servants say their neutral out-of-office notes were altered after they were furloughed — rewritten in the first person to assign blame to Democrats. One employee changed it back, only to watch it flip again.

The White House took the same line, sending reporters an automated reply blaming “staff shortages resulting from the Democrat Shutdown,” then later doubling down in a statement: this is simply “the truth,” a spokeswoman said.

Ethics experts aren’t buying it. Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer, called it a coordinated executive-branch campaign to pressure Congress — behavior that may run afoul of the Anti-Lobbying Act, which bars using appropriated funds to push for or against legislation. He said the messaging also edges toward Hatch Act violations, the law that restricts partisan activity by federal employees. Donald Sherman of CREW said that even if the Hatch Act isn’t technically tripped, agencies have a legal duty to provide nonpartisan service. Public Citizen’s Craig Holman went further, filing a Hatch Act complaint against HUD’s secretary and promising more against other agencies.

On Capitol Hill, Democrats cried foul. Rep. Jasmine Crockett asked on CNN how the use of official platforms for partisan broadsides could be anything but a Hatch Act problem. Speaker Mike Johnson waved it off, calling the agency banners “objective truth” since Democrats opposed the GOP stopgap.

All of this is unfolding as the administration uses the shutdown to flex broader power — freezing or canceling billions for climate and infrastructure projects in blue states, and warning that mass firings could follow if the standoff drags on. Trump, for his part, has called the shutdown an “unprecedented opportunity” to cut what he labels “Democrat Agencies,” and says he’ll consult budget chief Russell Vought — of Project 2025 fame — on which cuts should be temporary or permanent.

Notices on government websites are supposed to tell the public what’s closed and what’s not. Turning them into partisan billboards may end up telling investigators something else entirely.

Politico, NBC News, the Hill contributed to this report.