‘Stop violating the law!’ Trump admin ordered to restore spending database
The Trump administration violated federal law by shutting down an online database that allowed the public to track government spending, a federal judge ruled Monday. The judge rejected what he called the administration’s “extravagant and unsupported theory of presidential power.”
“There is nothing unconstitutional about Congress requiring the Executive Branch to inform the public of how it is apportioning the public’s money,” U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District of Columbia wrote. “Defendants are therefore required to stop violating the law!”
The judge gave the administration until Thursday to decide whether to appeal his ruling. Unless an appeals court blocks the order, the database is supposed to be restored to an Office of Management and Budget website this week.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Unbiased. Straight Facts.TM
A 2022 law requiring government spending to be listed on a public database was passed in response to the Trump administration’s withholding of Ukrainian aid in 2019. The episode led to President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.
Law aimed at ‘potential abuse’
A law enacted in 2022 requires presidential administrations to publish online information showing that they spent money as Congress intended in appropriations bills. What the law calls the “public apportionments database” is supposed to be updated within two days of an administration’s spending decisions.
The judge said lawmakers approved the Protecting Our Democracy Act “in response to growing concerns about the potential abuse of the apportionment process and misuse of apportioned funds.”
Many of those concerns originated with a decision during the first Trump administration to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars in security assistance that Congress had approved for Ukraine.
In a now-famous telephone call, Trump told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he would release the money in exchange for incriminating information about former Vice President Joe Biden, who was expected to be a leading Democratic candidate for president in 2020. The incident became the basis for Trump’s first impeachment in 2019.
The public database went live in July 2022, during Biden’s presidency, and was regularly updated until March 24 of this year.
Removing website ‘not optional’
Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, said in a letter to the House and Senate appropriations committees that the Office of Management “has determined it can no longer operate and maintain this system because it requires the disclosure of sensitive, predecisional and deliberative information.”
Vought received a rare bipartisan rebuke from Congress.
The Republican chairs of the appropriations committees, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma and Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, signed a letter protesting the decision along with the ranking Democrats on those panels, Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut and Sen. Patty Murphy of Washington.
“All four of us have indicated and advised OMB that it is not optional to do the public website,” Collins told The New York Times.
Two open-government organizations – Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and the Protect Democracy Project – sued to restore the database.
The administration argued that the 2022 law was “an unconstitutional infringement on executive power and privilege.” Administration lawyers also said spending decisions that are not final should not be disclosed.
The judge rejected the argument.
“The law is clear: Congress has sweeping authority to require public disclosure of how the Executive Branch is apportioning the funds appropriated by Congress,” Sullivan wrote.
If officials “need to make a new decision” on spending, Sullivan added, “that new decision must also be made public within two days.”
‘A right to know’
Advocacy groups applauded the decision.
“The law is clear that the federal government must make its appropriations decisions public,” said Adina Rosenbaum, a lawyer with Public Citizen Litigation Group who was a lead attorney in the lawsuit. “So, this case turned on a straightforward point: The administration must follow the law.”
“Americans have a right to know how taxpayer money is being spent,” said Nikhel Sus, deputy chief counsel at Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “Ensuring public access to this information serves as a critical check on the executive branch’s abuse and misuse of federal funds.”
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
