Secretary of State Mike Pompeo speech’s on Tuesday at the Republican National Convention was unprecedented. No acting Secretary of State had given a speech at a party convention before Pompeo. Diplomats and federal employees have typically stayed way from partisan activity and there are rules in place that prevent federal employees from being involved in partisan politics. The Hatch Act, passed in 1939, covers all federal employees, except for the President and Vice President, and prohibits various partisan political activities. For example, the Hatch Act states that federal employees cannot, “use their official authority or influence to interfere with or affect the result of an election.” Pompeo did not refer to himself as Secretary of State in the video, but he did record the video during an official visit to Israel.

Since Pompeo is part of the National Security Council, he is subject to further restrictions. Federal employees who have more restrictions cannot, “take an active part in partisan political campaigns, by, for example: Campaigning for or against a candidate or slate of candidates. Making campaign speeches or engaging in other campaign activities to elect partisan candidates.” Therefore, it is possible that Pompeo violated both of these restrictions.

Additionally, a State Department memo on Hatch Act restrictions, from December 2019,   specifically states, “Senate confirmed Presidential appointees may not even attend a political party convention or convention-related event.” Pompeo was confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of State in 2018.

There are nine states and D.C. that will mail ballots directly to voters, which is known as universal mail-in voting, and these places only account for 44 million voters. Several states, including Colorado, Nevada and Washington have conducted primary elections in which ballots were mailed to all eligible voters. There have not been reports of widespread voter fraud in those states. In Nevada, some ballots were rejected largely because they were not properly filled out, but there were no reports of fraud. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, is keeping track of voter fraud during the 2020 election, and in their database they only list 13 cases of voter fraud in the 2020 election so far. None of those cases of voter fraud occurred in states with universal mail-in voting.

Before the economic downturn due to the pandemic and the measures taken to combat it, certain groups’ unemployment numbers were lower than at any time since those statistics were recorded. Data from the Federal Reserve Economic Data shows that unemployment rates for Asians, Black people, Hispanics, and people with less than a high school diploma, were lower during President Trump’s first term than any time since those statistics began to be kept. However, unemployment rates for college educated people, people with only a high school diploma, women and the overall unemployment rate, were lower at other points in time before Trump took office in 2017. Additionally, the unemployment rates for Hispanics, people with less than a high school diploma, people with only a high school diploma, Asians, and college educated people were highest in quarter two of 2020 than anytime since these statistics have been tracked. Also, the real GDP of the U.S. was higher in quarter four of 2019 than any time in history, but real GDP has fallen more in one quarter than any time since WWII. From quarter one of 2020 to quarter two, real GDP dropped by roughly $1.8 trillion.

Louis DeJoy became the Postmaster General in June. Before taking this role, DeJoy built and ran his company, New Breed Logistics, until it was bought by XPO Logistics in 2014. DeJoy served on the board of XPO Logistics from 2015 to 2018. When he became Postmaster General, DeJoy and his wife reportedly still had about $30-75 million in stock of XPO Logistics, although he sold his stock in UPS. XPO Logistics carries out a variety of logistical services and it has ties to the Postal Service, as it helps the Postal Service during periods when there is a high volume of shipping. However, XPO Logistics is listed as one of 10 main competitors of USPS by Owler.com, a service that allows its users to show who a company’s competitors are. USPS and XPO do offer some similar services, such helping businesses to facilitate the return of their packages.

The coronavirus started spreading in the U.S. in April of 2009 and it peaked in late October of 2009. At the start of the H1N1 pandemic, 66% of Americans approved of Obama’s response to the pandemic. In early November 2009, right after the peak of H1N1 in the U.S., Americans’ approval of how Obama handled the coronavirus had fallen, but was still at 57%. According to FiveThirtyEight, In February and early March more Americans approved of Trump’s response to the coronavirus pandemic than disapproved, but in March Trump had a mixed approval rating. Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the coronavirus peaked on March 27 at 49.7%. Since late March, Americans’ approval of Trump’s response to the coronavirus has steadily declined while disapproval of Trump’s response has increased. As of Tuesday, 57.9% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s response while 38.9% approve.

Additionally, the H1N1 pandemic was significantly less deadly than the coronavirus pandemic. 12,469 Americans died of the H1N1 pandemic, but 171,516 Americans have died so far from the coronavirus according to Johns Hopkins.

Trump has donated to Kamala Harris’s campaign for California Attorney General twice. Trump donated $1,000 to Harris’s campaign in 2013 and $5,000 in 2011. Additionally, Ivanka Trump donated $2,000 to Harris in 2014. Notably, both Donald and Ivanka Trump were living in New York when they made the contribution to Harris, despite that Harris was running in California. Trump donated significantly more money to Democrats than to Republicans until 2011. From 2011 to 2015, Trump only donated $8,500 to Democratic politicians and $1,000 of that was to Kamala Harris. At a press conference on Tuesday, Trump said of Harris, “She was very very nasty, to — one of the reasons that surprised me, she was very — she was probably nastier than even Pocahontas to Joe Biden.” Trump also tweeted an attack ad against Harris that labeled Harris as ‘phony’ and ’embracing the radical left.’

On Saturday, Trump signed three memorandums and one executive order that are designed to help Americans dealing with the economic downturn as a result of the coronavirus lock-down. The three memorandums address student loan payment relief, deferring payroll tax obligations, and using emergency funds to provide economic relief to states and people who are unemployed. The executive order deals with rent relief. The legality of the of the memorandum on the use of emergency funds for relief has been questioned, and may be on shakier legal ground compared to the other measures. The three other actions may fall within the president’s authority because the president has the authority to delay student loan payments and defer taxes in times of disaster, and the order on rent relief is less sweeping than some initially thought.

The order on rent relief states that, “Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Director of CDC shall consider whether any measures temporarily halting residential evictions of any tenants for failure to pay rent are reasonably necessary to prevent the further spread of COVID-19.” The memorandum also states that the Sectaries of other agencies should identify funds to be used to help renters and should try to help renters avoid eviction. It does not state exactly what actions or funds are to be used, and it doesn’t impose strict requirements on these agencies to take a specific action.

Trump may not have the authority to create enhanced unemployment programs because the Stafford Disaster Relief Act allows the president to give unemployment aid only to those not eligible for other unemployment benefits, and it does not allow the amount given to unemployed people to exceed the normal amount of unemployment benefits given to them by the state.

In the memorandums on student loans and tax deferment, Trump referenced specific laws that allow the president to delay or defer payments in times of disaster or economic hardship. The president can delay student loans for up to three years for people who experience economic hardship. Additionally, the president can defer collection of federal taxes during a disaster.

Nevada does have infrastructure in place for mail-in voting. The Nevada legislature passed a bill, which was signed by the Governor on Monday, that will send a mail-in ballot to every voter in Nevada. Trump has voiced opposition to this bill, and the Trump campaign launched a lawsuit on Wednesday against Nevada to prevent this measure from going into effect for the election.

However, Nevada’s primary election in June was held almost entirely through mail-in voting. Over 98 percent of the 491,654 ballots cast in the primary were cast through mail-in voting, and the election saw a very high voter turnout. Additionally, over 10,000 primary ballots were rejected because they were incorrectly submitted. Through the CARES act, Nevada received about $4,500,000 in HAVA (Help America Vote Act) funds, which can help pay for the cost of setting up infrastructure and hiring personnel to count mail-in ballots.

President Trump has threatened to ban TikTok or force it to be sold to Microsoft. There is precedent for this, and the Trump administration has been using the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to remove Chinese ownership of a company when it poses a threat to privacy, security or trade secrets.

In 2019, CFIUS opened a review of the 2017 sale of TikTok to ByteDance. CFIUS could rule that the sale shouldn’t have gone through because of threats to privacy or national security. They could also force ByteDance to sell TikTok to an American company, like Microsoft.

Similarly, in 2019 the Trump administration forced the Chinese owners of the tech startup PatientsLikeMe to sell their shares after CFIUS found that the sale of the majority of the company’s shares in 2017 that went to a Chinese company shouldn’t have taken place, likely due to concerns over data privacy. PatientsLikeMe was bought by UnitedHealth following the divestment of the Chinese majority owners. The Trump administration has been aggressively using CFIUS to reduce Chinese investment and ownership of American firms.

A video circulating on social media appeared to show a protester being arrested and pulled into an unmarked van by plain clothed officers. People began to speculate or assume that the Federal police who made the arrest because Federal police had arrested a protester in Portland by putting them in an unmarked van. However, the NYPD confirmed that arresting officers were from the NYPD Warrant Squad and used a NYPD van. The NYPD claimed that officers were assaulted with rocks and bottles during the arrest but the video of incident does not appear to show this.