President Donald Trump was meeting privately with U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Oval Office Thursday when he suddenly told them, “Let’s go out, see the press.” His idea was for them to explain to reporters “the importance of the wall.” But the spectacle that ensued raises legal and ethical questions.

Experts said the president’s use of the officers in what amounted to a border barrier infomercial on afternoon cable television likely did not run astray of a 1939 law that bars most federal employees from conducting political activities while in their official roles. But they indicated other federal laws and guidelines might have been breached in just the latest example of the 45th president’s insistence on making a splash almost daily and eviscerating Washington norms that have been followed by Republican and Democratic presidents alike for decades.

During the Oval Office meeting, the president said the agents “basically said — and I think I can take the word ‘basically’ out: ‘Without a wall, you cannot have border security. Without a very strong form of barrier — call it what you will — but without a wall, you cannot have border security. It won’t work.’”

Rank-and-file federal employees almost never appear in the White House briefing room to make political statements. So it was notable that one of the officers on Thursday made a point to say the group was not there for political reasons — but to advocate for a needed public policy.

Trump turned the podium over to several of the agents, including Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council and a Border Patrol agent in Arizona.