Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman\u2019s recent appearance with President Donald Trump at his county\u2019s police academy \u2014 with uniformed cadets and officers sitting behind them \u2014 amounted to an improper partisan political rally, Democrats allege in a formal complaint expected to be filed Friday with the state Board of Elections.<\/p>\n
The Aug. 14 event<\/a> featured Republican candidates for Congress from around the state. Several spoke from the rostrum, denouncing Democratic officeholders. Blakeman, who is also running for governor, attacked state policies and Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul during his speech.<\/p>\n Trump took the stage and praised his host after discussing new crime figures.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to get Bruce into office,\u201d Trump said before mentioning Blakeman\u2019s Democratic opponent. \u201cNowhere is the communist attack on American society more clear than in New York state. The radical-left Gov. Kathy Hochul has been very, very bad on crime.\u201d<\/p>\n The rhetoric and choice of speakers effectively made the event a partisan political rally, New York State Democratic Committee Chair Jay Jacobs said. He said Blakeman improperly used the resources of his public office to benefit his campaign by holding the event in a county-owned facility secured in part by county police.<\/p>\n \u201cCandidate Bruce Blakeman, while accepting public finance dollars to mount a campaign, has exploited the governmental office of Nassau County executive to deploy county funds, facilities and personnel, all in furtherance of his own statewide candidacy,\u201d Jacobs wrote in the complaint, which was reviewed by Gothamist.<\/p>\n State law prohibits the use of public resources for campaign activity. Incumbent officials, including both Hochul and Blakeman, often use their official bully pulpits to make points that are later echoed in campaign advertisements and speeches.<\/p>\n In a statement, Blakeman described the Democrats\u2019 complaint as a \u201cHail Mary.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course Kathy Hochul would criticize the president for coming to tour our outstanding law enforcement facilities and honor law enforcement professionals,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Jacobs said it was far more than a tour.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was a campaign rally. It looked like a campaign rally. It smelled like a campaign rally. It is a campaign rally. And that’s OK, but then a campaign should pay for it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n The Washington, D.C.-based watchdog Public Citizen filed a federal complaint against U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche for speaking at the event. Public Citizen said<\/a> Blanche effectively endorsed Blakeman when the attorney general described the candidate as \u201cgreat\u201d in a speech.<\/p>\n A Department of Justice spokesperson said the complaint was baseless and politically motivated.<\/a><\/p>\n The White House said the gathering was an official event to announce crime statistics.<\/a> The president subsequently described the event on social media<\/a> as \u201ca Rally in Nassau County in honor of Bruce Blakeman, who is running for Governor of New York.\u201d<\/p>\n White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said that \u201cextreme liberal Democrats\u201d were deflecting attention from \u201csoft on crime policies.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPresident Trump promised to stand with our law enforcement officers and to deliver safer American neighborhoods,\u201d Bis said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman\u2019s recent appearance with President Donald Trump at his county\u2019s police academy \u2014 with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":331724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[9,11,10,49,51,50],"class_list":["post-331723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-new-york-state","tag-new-york-state-headlines","tag-new-york-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}