Over the weekend, the news quickly spread that White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had been booted from a restaurant in Virginia on the basis of "moral conviction." Sanders later confirmed the incident using her official press secretary Twitter account, which could be an ethics violation according to one expert.
On Friday night, Sanders and her family attempted to eat at Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia before the restaurant’s owner asked Sanders to leave. “I was babbling a little,” owner Stephanie Wilkinson told CNN, according to Deadline. “But I got my point across in a polite and direct fashion. I explained that the restaurant has certain standards that I feel it has to uphold, such as honesty and compassion and cooperation. I said, ‘I’d like to ask you to leave.’”
Sanders and her family left, and the restaurant covered the cost of their meal. “I would have done the same thing again,” Wilkinson said. “We just felt there are moments in time when people need to live their convictions. This appeared to be one.”
This isn’t the first time Shaub has called out Sanders for using her official government Twitter for personal matters. Back in January, he joined people roasting Sanders on Twitter over a post she made about her Amazon Echo.
Just like the Red Hen incident, Sanders used her official government twitter instead of her personal one (@SHSanders45). “I know this WH's ethics office is next to useless, so here's a rule of thumb for complying with 5 C.F.R. § 2635.702: Avoid discussing purchases from private companies on your govt account,” Shaub tweeted at the time.
