The federal government’s internal watchdog told Congress Tuesday that it has concluded President Donald Trump acted unlawfully in unilaterally canceling $810 million in federal funding.
In a letter to congressional leaders obtained by POLITICO, the Government Accountability Office’s top lawyer panned Trump’s declaration Friday that he is using a controversial budget maneuver called a “pocket rescission” to nix money Congress appropriated.
“The Constitution vests in Congress the power of the purse,” GAO General Counsel Edda Emmanuelli Perez wrote, adding that “Congress did not cede this important power” by enacting the 1970s impoundment law intended to stop presidents from withholding money Congress approves.
“Any withholding of appropriated funds beyond their date of expiration, regardless of size, subverts both the constitutional process for enacting federal law and Congress’s constitutional power of the purse,” Perez added. “The President may not force the expiration of budget authority Congress has already enacted and did not rescind.”
It is unclear what practical effect, if any, the letter will have on the interbranch funding fight. Outside groups sued the administration last year over a prior pocket rescission, but the Supreme Court issued a preliminary ruling that they did not have standing to challenge the matter.
Pennsylvania Rep. Brendan Boyle, the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, applauded GAO’s conclusion and called for passage of a bill he crafted to prevent the president from using the tactic.
“No president has the authority to ignore Congress,” he said in a statement.
Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said “GAO reaffirmed what we have long known” and that “the president does not — nor will he ever — have the unilateral authority to cancel this funding.”
Some federal judges have concluded that only the head of GAO is able to sue under the 52-year-old law governing rescissions, since that legislation tasked the watchdog with tracking cash the executive branch spends and challenging any illegal withholding of federal dollars on Congress’ behalf.
But GAO has not taken legal action against Trump, even after repeatedly concluding that the administration has illegally impounded federal dollars during the president’s second term. The watchdog has been operating without a Senate-confirmed leader since former Comptroller General Gene Dodaro retired in December.
White House budget director Russ Vought noted on social media Tuesday that GAO first concluded in 1975 that Congress was unable to reject then-President Gerald Ford’s requests to rescind funding “in time to prevent the budget authority from lapsing” and recommended Congress clarify the impoundment law. It has not done so.
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