EXCLUSIVE: The House Committee on Education and the Workforce is calling for an investigation into whether Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona violated the Hatch Act in an email blaming Republicans for the failure of the administration’s student loan repayment plan.
The committee penned a letter to special counsel Hampton Dellinger Tuesday in reference to a July 2024 email from Cardona reportedly sent to “student loan borrowers.”
The email, reviewed by Fox News Digital, showed the education secretary referencing “Republican elected officials” three times as the reason behind roadblocks to the Biden administration’s student loan repayment efforts.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during an interview with The Associated Press in his office at the Department of Education Sept. 20, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
As stated in the committee’s letter, the Hatch Act is a federal law that prohibits government officials from using their “official authority or influence for the purpose of interfering with or affecting the result of an election.” The GOP-led committee claimed Cardona’s email was “a message that appears to have been sent to aid the Democrat party and the Biden-Harris administration in the November 2024 elections.”
It was signed by Republican representatives Virginia Foxx of North Carolina and Keith Self of Texas.
Education Secretary Miguel Cardona speaks during the 2022 National and State Teachers of the Year event in the East Room of the White House in Washington April 27, 2022. (Susan Walsh)
“In recent weeks, several federal courts have issued rulings in lawsuits brought by Republican elected officials who are siding with special interests and trying to block Americans from accessing all the benefits of the most affordable student loan repayment plan in history – the SAVE (Saving on a Valuable Education Plan),” the July email from Cardona states.
Cardona added that the Biden administration will continue to fight for student debt relief, “no matter how many times Republican elected officials try to stop us.”
Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C, leaves a House Republican Conference meeting at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington May 17, 2022. (Bill Clark)
“While we disagree with the Republican elected officials’ efforts here to side with special interests and block borrowers from getting breathing room on their student loans, President Biden and our administration will not stop fighting to make sure Americans have affordable access to the life-changing opportunities a higher education can provide,” he wrote.
The letter also mentioned a July 19 press release put out by Cardona’s office after a federal appeals court ruling that blocked President Biden’s student loan debt handout plan. It said, in part, “It’s shameful that politically motivated lawsuits waged by Republican elected officials are once again standing in the way of lower payments for millions of borrowers.”
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Efforts to reach the Department of Education for comment were unsuccessful.