Watchdog Finds Trump Administration Broke Law by Withholding Library Funds
The Trump administration broke the law when it withheld funding for the nation's libraries, a nonpartisan government watchdog said on Monday, a finding that inches the White House another step closer to a legal showdown over its powers to reconfigure the country's spending.
The decision by the Government Accountability Office was the second time in two months that oversight officials have found fault in the ways that President Trump and his top aides have tried to circumvent lawmakers in their quest to reshape the federal budget so that it conforms with their political views.
The inquiry concerned the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which serves as the federal government's primary source of funding for libraries, museums and archives. In March, Mr. Trump sought to sharply curtail the agency as part of an executive order focused on the 'reduction of the federal bureaucracy,' prompting legal challenges from states, librarians and other opponents.
The accountability office, an arm of Congress that keeps watch over the nation's spending, concluded on Monday that the library agency ultimately 'ceased performing' its functions after the president's directive, and withheld funding that lawmakers had previously appropriated to carry out its mission.
Ethics officials ultimately classified the interruption in aid as an illegal impoundment, which is prohibited under a 1970s law meant to restrict the president and his ability to defy Congress on spending. The White House maintains that those limits are unconstitutional, and the president and his top budget aide, Russell T. Vought, have sought to test that theory as part of their dramatic and chaotic reorganization of the federal government.
Earlier this year, the accountability office revealed that it had opened more than three dozen investigations into Mr. Trump's spending activities. It announced the first of those findings in late May, concluding that the administration violated the law when it withheld money under a $5 billion program to expand electric vehicle charging stations.
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