Latest news with #ImpoundmentControlActof1974
The Hill
6 days ago
- Business
- The Hill
House GOP advances bill ‘gutting' government watchdog
House Republicans advanced legislation on Thursday that seeks to cut funding for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) by roughly 50 percent for fiscal year 2026, prompting outcry from Democrats who say the move is counterproductive to GOP efforts to root out waste in government. The GOP-led House Appropriations Committee voted along party lines on Thursday to advance the legislation, with Democrats rising in sharp opposition to the plan. The annual legislative branch funding bill, one of 12 full-year appropriations bills the committee aims to greenlight before the August recess, includes funding for House of Representatives operations, the Library of Congress, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), U.S. Capitol Police, and other agencies. Compared to current levels, the bill calls for $5 billion for fiscal 2026, or a 5 percent drop from current levels, when not accounting for Senate items. The total discretionary allocation rises to $6.7 billion, however, when considering those items. 'While we had to make a number of tough choices in this bill, we believe that as the legislative branch, it is our responsibility to lead by example and make responsible funding decreases where appropriate,' Rep. David Valadao (R-Calif.), head of the subcommittee that crafted the plan, said in remarks on Thursday. The largest proposed cut outlined by appropriators in the bill amounts to a nearly 49 percent decrease in funding for the GAO, allocating $415 million for the agency in the fiscal 2026 budget. Democrats have also criticized a provision in the plan that they say would block the agency from bringing civil actions against other agencies for not complying with the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. 'This is about the GAO having nearly 40 open investigations into whether the White House is illegally withholding money that we, as a committee, previously appropriate supporting the administration's actions that contravene the rule of law means the committee compromises,' Rep. Adriano Espaillat (N.Y.), top Democrat on the legislative branch appropriations subcommittee, said at the start of the markup session. 'With this, 2,200 jobs will be lost. In addition, Congress will forgo tens of billions in cost savings that result from GAO work each year,' he continued. The cuts come as GAO officials have made clear that they have a string of probes into the Trump administration's efforts to freeze federal funds. At the same time, Trump officials have raised scrutiny over the agency in recent months, with White House budget chief Russell Vought accusing the office of 'improperly calling programmatic review impoundments' in a Senate hearing earlier this week. 'We're going through a programmatic review. We will look at our options under the law with regard to that funding. Each set of funding is different, as you know, and we will be continuing to evaluate that program,' he also said before the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday. Democrats have accused the Trump administration of undertaking a sweeping, illegal funding freeze, blocking hundreds of billions of dollars in federal dollars previously approved by Congress. During the committee markup on Thursday, Democrats also singled out a proposal to cut funding for the Library of Congress by 10 percent for fiscal 2026. At the same time, the plan calls for increases to the U.S. Capitol Police, the CBO, the Architect of the Capitol, with a boost for salaries and expenses for House officers and employees, committees operations, as well as an increase for the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights. With the bill's passage on Thursday, the House Appropriations Committee has passed almost half of its annual funding bills for fiscal 2026. The House also passed its first fiscal 2026 appropriations bill, which lays out the party's vision for the Department of Veterans' Affairs full-year funding, earlier this week.
Yomiuri Shimbun
22-06-2025
- Politics
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Trump Attacks Watergate Laws in Massive Shift of Ethics System
Then-Rep. Elizabeth Holtzman was 32 when, as a member of the House Judiciary Committee, she voted in 1974 for three articles of impeachment against President Richard M. Nixon. She spent the next few years as part of a Congress that passed wave after wave of laws to rein in future presidents. A half-century later, Holtzman, a New York Democrat, is watching as President Donald Trump takes aim at post-Watergate reforms on transparency, spending, conflicts of interest and more. By challenging and disregarding, in letter or in spirit, this slew of 1970s laws, Trump is essentially closing the 50-year post-Watergate chapter of American history – and ushering in a new era of shaky guardrails and blurred separation of powers. 'We didn't envision this,' Holtzman said. 'We saw Nixon doing it, but he hadn't done it on this vast a scale. Trump is saying, 'Congress cannot tell me what to do about anything.'' In 1976, for example, Congress created a 10-year term for FBI directors; Trump has forced out two FBI directors. The Impoundment Control Act of 1974 aimed to prevent presidents from dismantling agencies; Trump has essentially done just that. Lawmakers in 1978 installed independent inspectors general in government offices; Trump has fired many of them and is seeking to replace them with loyalists. Trump has also disregarded post-Watergate safeguards intended to prevent the unjustified firings of federal workers. His U.S. DOGE Service has skirted rules on government secrecy and personal data. He has declared numerous emergencies despite Congress's efforts to rein them in. This broad rejection of the post-Watergate laws underlines the country's shift from an era focused on clean government and strict ethics to the rise of a president whose appeal stems in part from his willingness to violate such rules and constraints. 'There has been a collapse, at least temporarily, of the kind of outrage and ethical standards that were prevalent during the days of Watergate,' said Richard Ben-Veniste, who headed the special counsel's Watergate Task Force. 'The excesses of Watergate now seem naive. They have been overtaken by a system that is based on quid pro quo.' Many of Trump's moves face legal challenges, and they may be reversed by the courts – or the Supreme Court could enshrine them. Some scholars welcome Trump's effort to claw back presidential power, saying the post-Watergate Congresses, caught up in an anti-Nixon fervor, improperly sought to rewrite the Constitution in the legislative branch's favor. 'Congress should not be able to fundamentally change the constitutional balance between the two branches,' said John Yoo, a senior Justice Department official under President George W. Bush, referring to the legislative and executive. 'Several of the Watergate reforms went too far. The presidency functioned better, and the separation of powers functioned better, before.' White House spokesman Harrison Fields said Trump is not dismantling ethics but reviving them in a system that had become corrupted. 'President Trump is restoring the integrity of the Executive Branch following four years of relentless abuse through weaponization, lawfare, and unelected bureaucrats running the nation via autopen,' Harrison said in a statement. 'The President and his administration are the most transparent in American history, seamlessly executing the will of the American people in accordance with their constitutional authority.' Nixon's resignation on Aug. 9, 1974, was a seismic political event, as Americans at the time were far less hardened to scandal and more willing to denounce wrongdoing by their party's leaders. In November of that year, Democrats swept to historic majorities in Congress, carried on a wave of pro-reform sentiment. They crafted restraints on presidential authority that had not occurred to anyone before Nixon's startling use of government power against his adversaries. Nixon's team had broken into Democratic headquarters, spied on domestic targets, secretly taped White House visitors, misused campaign funds and even developed an 'enemies list' with a plan to 'use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies,' as White House counsel John Dean put it. Presidents of both parties have chafed at those restrictions but largely followed them. Until now. Some Democrats say Trump, by disregarding many of the statutes, is going further than Nixon, who at least paid lip service to his obligation to follow the law. 'Nixon was essentially a criminal, but an ordinary criminal who accepted the fact that the laws applied to him and that if he tried to violate them he would be subject to punishment,' said David Dorsen, an assistant chief counsel of the Senate Watergate Committee. 'Trump considers himself above the law, so that the system is to be rejected by him when he feels like it should be.' It is far from clear that Trump is seeking to eviscerate the Watergate laws specifically. He has always taken an expansive view of his own power, and that has set up a natural collision with the rules written by lawmakers trying to rein in what they saw as rogue presidents. That collision is unfolding on numerous fronts. Watergate-era lawmakers, furious at Nixon for refusing to spend money they had authorized, passed a law forbidding 'impoundment.' Trump ignored that when he temporarily froze government grants, and he has all but dismantled an agency created by Congress, the U.S. Agency for International Development. In response to Nixon's push to replace civil servants with political loyalists, Congress created the Merit Systems Protection Board in 1978 to hear cases of federal employees claiming unjust termination. Trump, who wants to force out thousands of workers, has dismissed a key member of the board and sought to neutralize it. Among the most notable post-Watergate reforms was the creation in 1978 of inspector general offices to pursue wrongdoing throughout the government. The law has been bolstered repeatedly since then and number of IGs has expanded to more than 70, with some Republican lawmakers among their strongest supporters. Trump fired 16 inspectors general shortly after taking office, in apparent violation of the law that requires 30 days' notice and a detailed rationale for such dismissals. Previous presidents, including Ronald Reagan, have also sought to fire IGs, but not in such a sweeping, peremptory manner. For many of Trump's critics, his rejection of the post-Watergate worldview goes beyond individual laws to a broader disregard of the principle that a president should not use the federal government to advance his personal interests. When Trump dines with people who enriched his family by buying his meme coin, or rewards his top campaign donor with a powerful federal job, they say, he is obliterating the red line drawn after Watergate. 'The background was a president who, on every front that you looked, was engaged in an abuse of power,' Holtzman said of the Watergate reforms. But now, she added, 'You have Elon Musk, who can spend almost $300 million to elect a president – when we passed a law specifically to limit expenditures because of the abuses we saw in Watergate.' The courts are weighing almost all of Trump's moves; he has won some victories, and legal experts say it is likely the Supreme Court will approve at least some of what he is doing. The judiciary has become far more supportive of presidential power in the years since Watergate. Yoo said it is notable that Trump is insisting on his right to fire any executive branch employee, including those Congress sought to shield with specified terms. 'If he succeeds in that, it would end the Watergate experiment in creating these independent bureaucracies,' said Yoo, who teaches at the University of California at Berkeley. 'On issue after issue, he has either taken these Watergate laws and interpreted them way beyond what the Congress originally wanted or just directly challenged their constitutionality, and you're seeing them go up to the Supreme Court right now,' Yoo said. Still, it was clear long before Trump that some of the most far-reaching Watergate reforms were floundering. The courts struck down several campaign finance rules, for example, saying they violated the First Amendment. In 1999, Congress chose not to renew its independent counsel law, which was a response to Nixon's notorious 'Saturday Night Massacre.' After Nixon fired Watergate Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox – along with Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy – Congress decreed that a three-judge panel would appoint such prosecutors in the future. But the system proved unwieldy. The Clinton administration alone faced seven independent counsel probes, many lasting for years or focused on minor allegations. By 1999, lawmakers of both parties were happy to let the statute expire and return to a system of special counsels appointed by the attorney general. The political culture has clearly shifted in dramatic ways since the late 1970s. Holtzman said her colleagues had hoped the threat of impeachment, which ultimately forced Nixon to resign, would deter future presidents if the new laws did not. Since then, President Bill Clinton was impeached once and Trump twice. But all three Senate trials resulted in acquittal largely along party lines. And Trump's impeachment did not prevent him from retaking the White House in decisive fashion last year. 'Naively, we thought the impeachment itself would stand as a warning to future presidents, and it hasn't,' Holtzman said. Rufus Edmisten, who was a deputy chief counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee, said Congress's willingness to assert itself in a bipartisan way has all but evaporated since the hot day in the summer of 1973 when he delivered a congressional subpoena to a sitting president. 'We're right back to another Watergate, except worse,' Edmisten said. 'Having been in the middle of all kinds of things for 10 years, especially Watergate, I cringe when I think how Congress has become a lapdog. It's taken a back seat in the separation of powers order of things. It's almost an afterthought.'
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Republican Attacks On GAO Escalate After Office Condemns DOGE Cuts
A top Trump administration official and Republicans in Congress are upping their attacks on the Government Accountability Office in light of its finding last week that one element of the Trump administration's DOGE rampage was done in violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974. White House budget chief Russ Vought joined a few members of Congress who posted on social media in recent days downplaying the legitimacy of the office, which is an independent nonpartisan agency embedded within the legislative branch that makes recommendations for lawmakers to consider as part of its legislating. The GAO typically focuses on reviewing federal spending, making recommendations on cost savings and waste and investigating how policies are being put into practice by federal agencies. Last week it found that the Trump administration had violated the Impoundment Control Act when it withheld funding allocated by the Biden-era infrastructure law to build more electric vehicle charging stations around the country. Trump allies are reportedly upset with the GAO about two other things, outside the impoundment finding (which was the outcome of just one of almost 40 investigations the office is currently conducting to look into the DOGE spending freezes of congressionally appropriated funding). The head of GAO Gene Dodaro reportedly rebuffed Elon Musk when his DOGE pals tried to bring a team in to work on downsizing the agency, as it has done with several departments and independent agencies embedded within the executive branch. It is, of course, not an executive branch agency. Last week, 'Senate Republicans disregarded GAO guidance and nixed waivers allowing California to set its own pollution standards, even after the watchdog concluded that the Senate couldn't do that under a simple-majority threshold,' Politico reported. 'Just so we are all clear over the next several months. The Government Accountability Office or GAO is a quasi-independent arm of the legislative branch that played a partisan role in the first-term impeachment hoax,' Vought said on Twitter last week, elevating an old MAGA talking point about the office being in cahoots with those trying to impeach Trump for his pressure campaign against then-new President Volodymyr Zelensky. (The GAO ruled after the House voted to impeach Trump the first time — and before the Senate trial — that Trump had violated the Impoundment Control Act when he froze U.S. military aid to Ukraine to try to get Zelensky to open an investigation into Hunter Biden.) 'They are going to call everything an impoundment because they want to grind our work to manage taxpayer dollars effectively to a halt. These are non-events with no consequence. Rearview mirror stuff,' Vought continued. 'GAO has lost credibility as an independent body,' Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) posted on Twitter over the weekend in response to the GAO ruling on the EV expansion funds. 'The GAO has no authority,' Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY) said last week. While a Trump executive branch official undermining the credibility of an independent agency that serves as a check on his actions is not new, Trump's allies in Congress have at least, up until this point, tried to operate with a veneer of respect for offices and agencies within its purview. Even in the midst of Trump's Library of Congress power grab, some members of Republican leadership acknowledged that the President's actions may not have been proper. The GAO is expected to release more rulings (which serve as non-binding recommendations to lawmakers) in coming weeks and months as it works its way through a pile of complaints about DOGE's potential Impoundment Control Act violations. Attacks on its legitimacy from lawmakers apparently unbothered by Trump's trampling of the separation of powers are expected to continue as well. In his first few days as the DOJ's new pardon attorney, Ed Martin was hand delivered pardon applications for some Jan. 6 folks by a former classmate of President Trump's. Among those he personally reviewed: Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, as well as some members of the Proud Boys (some of those convicted of seditious conspiracy had their sentences commuted, rather than receiving full pardons.) Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is in hot water again. Per a new, bizarre story from The Guardian: The White House has lost confidence in a Pentagon leak investigation that Pete Hegseth used to justify firing three top aides last month, after advisers were told that the aides had supposedly been outed by an illegal warrantless National Security Agency (NSA) wiretap. The extraordinary explanation alarmed the advisers, who also raised it with people close to JD Vance, because such a wiretap would almost certainly be unconstitutional and an even bigger scandal than a number of leaks. But the advisers found the claim to be untrue and complained that they were being fed dubious information by Hegseth's personal lawyer, Tim Parlatore, who had been tasked with overseeing the investigation. More Than 50 Men Entered The US Legally Only To Later Be Sent To CECOT, Report Finds The 'Invasion' Invention: The Far Right's Long Legal Battle to Make Immigrants the Enemy Trump's Weaponization Of DOJ Takes A Even More Sinister Turn More Than 50 Men Entered The US Legally Only To Later Be Sent To CECOT, Report Finds U.S. Will No Longer Recommend Covid Shots for Children and Pregnant Women Trump team pauses new student visa interviews as it weighs expanding social media vetting Trump Pardoned Tax Cheat After Mother Attended $1 Million Dinner
Epoch Times
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Epoch Times
Trump Admin's EV Funding Freeze Violated Federal Law, Says Government Watchdog
A government watchdog says President Donald Trump's administration may have violated a little-known federal law through a move to rescind funding for a Biden-era electric vehicle (EV) program. The law in question, known as the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, places limits on the president's power to 'impound,' or unilaterally refuse to disburse, funding appropriated by Congress. As the administration seeks to downsize the federal government through sweeping executive actions, some observers have been expecting a showdown on the issue between Trump, who has raised questions about the law's constitutionality in the past, and the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the watchdog that oversees impoundment law. In a May 22 On Feb. 6, the DOT announced a freeze on new EV infrastructure grants under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) of 2021. That legislation appropriated $5 billion toward constructing new charging stations and other EV infrastructure as part of former President Joe Biden's push to rapidly phase out gas-powered vehicles. All 50 states, as well as Puerto Rico, have sought funding under the law, the GAO reported. Related Stories 5/20/2025 2/3/2025 The GAO said that the move to cancel funding appropriated by Congress is in violation of the 1974 law. According to the GAO, there was a 'mandate to spend' within the IIJA, so 'DOT is not authorized to withhold these funds from expenditure and DOT must continue to carry out the statutory requirements of the program.' The revocation of new EV grants comes as the president has ordered government-wide staff reductions, withheld funds, and shuttered or merged multiple government agencies and departments in an effort to reduce the size and spending of the federal government. These sweeping executive actions have prompted at least 39 investigations by the GAO, Comptroller General Gene Dodaro told a Senate panel in April. Multiple lawsuits from affected agencies and former employees have also been brought to court. However, until now, there had been few major developments on the issue, with most courts that heard cases related to impoundment refusing to grant injunctions. Party lines have already been forming, however. Trump and his allies have made the case for broad presidential impoundment authority, saying it is a means for the president to exercise oversight on taxpayer funding and prevent wasteful spending. Trump promised on the campaign trail to legally challenge the Impoundment Control Act during his second term. 'This disaster of a law is clearly unconstitutional—a blatant violation of the separation of powers,' Trump said in a 2024 campaign Democrats and other critics say the president's use of impoundment transgresses congressional authority. 'From day one, President Trump has unilaterally frozen or contravened critical funding provided in our bipartisan laws,' Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) said during the April hearing in which Dodaro testified. 'That is really not what the Constitution envisioned. Congress has the power of the purse, period. Our presidents cannot pick and choose which parts of a law that they can follow.'
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Trump Decides Now Is Not The Time To Make Republicans Rubber Stamp His DOGE Power Grab—Maybe Later
First it was reported that the Trump White House was considering sending a rescissions package to Congress, a way of letting the legislature rubber stamp some of the spending cuts DOGE has already implemented. Then it was reported that Trump might delay that package, at least a few weeks, while House and Senate Republicans focus on slashing Medicaid and passing the rest of Trump's fiscal priorities in the massive reconciliation bill. Now it seems like he is going to delay even further, perhaps for two years, while the White House focuses on its real goal: launching a legal challenge against the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which limits a president's ability to freeze or not spend funds that have already been appropriated by Congress. If he succeeds, the whole rescissions thing might just be moot. Politico reports that the Trump administration is now looking at a two-year timeline for a rescissions package, kicking the can on the date when it may, eventually, attempt to shove portions of Trump and Elon Musk's already-implemented, destructive DOGE cuts down congressional Republicans' throats. Some Republicans are reportedly unnerved by the constitutionally backward move. Others, like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), are seemingly on board with the move, but recognize it is a lot to stomach. 'I think they don't want to lose the vote, so I think they may be concerned about the sensibility,' Sen. Josh Hawley told Politico of the delay. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is one of the few Republicans who has publicly nodded in the direction of acknowledging that Elon's actions are constitutionally problematic. He has maintained that the DOGE cuts are not legal until they've been approved by Congress. More from Politico: While the rescissions package would move on a separate track, the White House is recognizing that Congress is preoccupied. Therefore, it's giving itself a much longer timeline to codify DOGE cuts while leaving open the option of challenging the Impoundment Control Act, the 1974 law that limits a president's ability to withhold funds appropriated by Congress. Trump's allies have argued the president already has authority to withhold spending but it would likely be up to the courts to decide, given that the Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. 'The focus right now is the reconciliation bill,' said a White House official granted anonymity to speak freely. 'I think there's an appetite within Capitol Hill, within the two years that we have to codify the work of DOGE. The procedures of Capitol Hill may not allow for it to happen now but it doesn't mean it won't happen later.' The public corruption unit in the FBI's Washington Field Office has been shut down. The group helped former Special Counsel Jack Smith in his investigation into Trump and his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. The FBI's Washington Field Office has three units that work on public corruption. The one that's been shuttered was known as CR15. That unit was involved with the FBI's initial investigation into the Trump 2020 election subversion scheme — the investigation that ultimately flowed into Smith's federal criminal case against Trump. According to NBC News, the special agents that were working in the special unit will be reassigned, rather than fired — a break from the FBI's previous mode of operations under director Kash Patel, who, even before he was confirmed, allegedly aided in the firing of prosecutors involved in Jan. 6 cases. Republicans on the House Agriculture Committee advanced legislation that includes massive cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, in a party line 29-25 vote Wednesday night. The GOP proposal — which would cut as much as $300 billion from the food aid program that more than 40 million people rely on — aims to establish a new cost-sharing system with states that penalizes them with higher costs based on their individual payment error rates. That would mean that states with payment error rates between six percent and eight percent would pay for 15% of SNAP, while states with error rates between eight percent and 10 percent would pay for 20%. And states with error rates above 10% would be hit with taking on the responsibility of 25 percent of the benefits. 'These cuts hurt families, putting 4 million children between seven and seventeen at greater risk of food insecurity,' Rep. Jahana Hayes (D-CT), ranking member of the nutrition subcommittee, said in a statement following the committee's budget markup. 'It is unconscionable that we are effectively debating whether a seven-year-old, with no control over the situation of their family, deserves food assistance, not just at home, but also potentially at school and during the summer, as other nutrition programs tied to SNAP are impacted.' The bill will now make its way to the House Budget Committee, which is expected to meet at 9 a.m. ET on Friday to put together the reconciliation package, getting it ready for a floor vote next week. — Emine Yücel House Democrats are opening an investigation into Trump's shady acceptance of a $400 million private jet from the government of Qatar. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) sent a letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House counsel David Warrington on Thursday asking the attorney general for a supposed memo that was written justifying the legality of Trump accepting the gift. The letter was signed by other Dems on the House Judiciary Committee. An excerpt: Any legal memo purporting to make such a claim would obviously fly in the face of the text of the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause, which explicitly prohibits the President from accepting any 'present [or] Emolument… of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State' unless he has 'the Consent of Congress. Trump Admin Admits It Could Game Court System Without Nationwide Injunctions Birthright Citizenship Is Safe For Now. Nationwide Injunctions Are Not. Catch up on our live coverage of Supreme Court oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case here: SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments In Birthright Citizenship Case, With Consequences For Courts' Ability To Check Trump Personalization, The Vastly Bigger Story Behind the Pimpmobile Jet Bribe We ran 10 flagship state colleges. The war on higher ed won't stop with Harvard. The rampant federal fraud that DOGE is largely ignoring Noem eyes $50M for new DHS jet
