A nonpartisan government watchdog said on Monday that President Donald Trump broke the law when he withheld funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the only federal agency focused on funding for libraries and museums across the country.
Trump first targeted the institute in March through an executive order that also called for the elimination of funds to other government entities he deemed “unnecessary,” including the U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, the Minority Business Development Agency and the U.S. Agency for Global Media, among others.
The Government Accountability Office, the independent congressional watchdog agency that oversees federal waste, fraud and abuse, ruled the withholding of funds from the Institute of Museum and Library Services was illegal.
It was the second such ruling it has made against the Trump administration since the president began his mission to radically reshape the government, and one that sets up a potential legal battle over the White House’s power to alter federal spending.
GAO’s recent inquiry also determined that the Institute of Museum and Library Services “ceased performing” functions in order to comply with Trump’s directive, and terminated at least 1,200 competitive grants and contracts worth nearly $5 million in congressionally approved funding.
In a statement following the ruling, Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Trump “himself signed these investments into law, and they need to start flowing immediately.”
“The president’s funding freeze isn’t just illegal; every day it continues, it hurts real people and communities across our country who are suffering the consequences as investments they count on get choked off,” Murray said.
The GAO rulings are expected to continue throughout the month as the agency pursues 39 probes into the Trump administration’s funding freezes. The first ruling in late May found Trump illegally withheld funds from the Transportation Department’s National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure Formula Program — which Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought called “wrong and legally indefensible.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment, instead referring NOTUS to letters sent by OMB to the Office of General Counsel on June 3 and May 30 in response to GAO’s first ruling and its ongoing investigations, respectively.
“GAO’s conclusions are based on fundamental errors of law and fact,” read the June 3 letter in response to GAO’s first ruling. “These examples and many others lead to the inescapable conclusion that GAO has become a partisan actor, issuing opinions based on double standards designed to undermine President Trump’s historic and lawful spending reforms.”
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Amelia Benavides-Colón is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.