“It looks to me like they’re trying to take away her right of free speech, and that’s just not fair.”
That is ignorant, as usual. The Hatch Act exists for the very purpose of noting a necessary limitation on free speech as it relates to certain executive branch officials and their ability to influence elections. It provides that persons below the policy-making level in the executive branch of the federal government must abstain from “any active part” in political campaigns. Although that might seem in conflict with the First Amendment, the Supreme Court has upheld its constitutionality on more than one occasion, and has specifically rejected Trump’s “free speech” argument. The court ruled in 1973 that the Hatch Act had achieved “a delicate balance between fair and effective government and the First Amendment rights of individual employees.”
Those FBI people, Page and Strzok, who got in trouble for making anti-Trump comments during an election process, were also exercising their free speech, but free speech has to be given practical limitations in certain circumstances, and a political campaign seems to be one of those. Kellyanne can, however, quit her current job, go to work for Trump’s campaign, and then say anything she wants with impunity. The problem is not what she said, but her specific position.
One of the reasons I favor attempting to impeach Trump is forcing the Republicans in Congress, and by implication the Republican Party as a whole, to stand up and make their support of him explicit and official, on the record for all time (or until such time as the Republicans establish a Ministry of Truth).
The Republican Party needs to be nailed to the cross of Trump forever.