Watchdog hits ex-Biden official for using gov’t designation on X profile

A watchdog group filed an ethics complaint against an ex-Biden administration official on Tuesday for continuing to use a government-affiliated social media account to promote the anti-Trump organization now employing her.

Protect the Public’s Trust (PPT) submitted the complaint to a host of Trump administration officials on Tuesday, alleging that Melissa Schwartz — formerly the communications director for the Biden Department of the Interior (DOI) — is improperly maintaining the appearance that her X profile is still government-affiliated as she promotes her new employer, an anti-Trump legal group called Democracy Forward. PPT argues in its complaint that Schwartz’s continued use of X’s “gray check mark,” which indicates that the account is government-affiliated, may fall afoul of National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) guidance and potentially criminal law.

Many X users pay for premium “blue check mark” status on the app, and archived accounts of former government officials typically display blue check marks after those officials leave government instead of continuing to use the gray icon, according to PPT’s complaint. The gray check mark on Schwartz’s profile says that “this account is verified because it is a government or multilateral organization account” when clicked.

“Despite having left government employment, from January 28, 2024, to the date of this submission, Ms. Schwartz has been posting on a verified government X account promotional, Democracy Forward content that is expressly adverse to the policies of the current administration,” the complaint states.

Schwartz has authored or amplified approximately 50 X posts promoting Democracy Forward or its top officials since mid-February. PPT notes in the complaint that Democracy Forward is “a progressive law firm described as “one of the biggest thorns in the side of the Trump Administration.’”

“It appears that Ms. Schwartz is continuing to regularly use the same verified government X account that she used while working at the Department of the Interior despite having left the Department months ago. Doing so would seem to violate NARA’s direction that ‘social media accounts created or used for official agency business . . . stay under the control of the agency,’” the complaint adds. “Plainly, NARA cannot have control of federal records Ms. Schwartz created and/or disseminated while working as a federal employee unless those records have been appropriately segregated and archived. That does not appear to have occurred here and the account presently remains open and subject to change at any time.”

The complaint further notes that NARA guidance stipulates that government employees who wish to keep using social media platforms for personal reasons after leaving government service should do so with new accounts.

“Ms. Schwartz appears to have done no such thing, but instead has sought to advance her own private purposes through communications on X with an audience garnered, at least in part, through the use of government resources during her tenure at Interior,” PPT’s complaint states. “… If the current leadership of the Department of the Interior knew Ms. Schwartz’s X account appeared with a gray check mark — and therefore has the potential to mislead the public into believing that she remains a representative of the government while disseminating content completely at odds with the current administration — it is fair to assume that they would not want that to be done. Almost certainly, Ms. Schwartz knows that neither the current Department of the Interior nor the current administration would wish for her to hold herself out as its representative.”

Moreover, PPT argues in its complaint that Schwartz “has not only misrepresented her status,” but may have even met the legal criteria for embezzlement under 18 U.S.C. § 641 by continuing to use the gray check mark on her X profile.

Schwartz did not respond to a request for comment.

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