Federal funds

Withholding federal funds is a favorite Trump leverage tactic

By JENNIFER SCHOLTES and CAITLIN EMMA

The White House move to withhold cash to Ukraine is the most high-profile example of how President Donald Trump has used federal money to stretch the powers of the executive branch to get what he wants.

But it’s certainly not the first time.

Earlier this year Trump ordered that funds from military construction projects be used to build his border wall. He considered holding up billions in foreign aid but was talked out of it by lawmakers and aides who insisted it would be detrimental to national security. He quietly diverted money from other accounts to immigration enforcement.

The Constitution may give Congress the power of the purse, but that hasn’t stopped the president from pushing beyond his predecessors to ignore Capitol Hill and do what he wants with the federal budget.

These power plays are reflective of Trump’s style as a businessman: Find your leverage, use your power and ignore the usual rules.

“I can’t fault them for trying to be innovative in how they can fund their priorities,” Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) told POLITICO on Tuesday. “But where I have concerns is where they have exercised a level of authority that doesn’t exist, that goes beyond.”

Murkowski is one of several Republican senators planning to vote this week against the emergency order Trump delivered in February to unilaterally shift billions of dollars toward building his border wall, at the expense of priorities like military construction projects and drug interdiction work.

Senate Appropriations Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.), however, said Trump is "bold" but effective. “The president of the United States has a lot of power, expressed and implied in the Constitution, to protect the border," said Shelby. "The courts seem to be trending in his direction ... He’s pretty bold but I’ll tell you this, he has slowed the number of illegal immigrants coming into this country.”

A senior administration official said that the Office of Management and Budget "is committed to making effective use of every tool at our disposal, according to the law, to advance the President’s pro-growth agenda.”

Here’s six times Trump has threatened to withhold or move taxpayer money to get what he wants:

Running out the clock on foreign aid — Acting White House budget director Russ Vought and acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney presented Trump with a proposal last month to freeze more than $4 billion in foreign aid by tying up the funds in the last days of the fiscal year. Lawmakers and administration officials in both parties were successful in talking the president out of the plan the budget advisers had hatched, arguing that it was both detrimental to national security and a violation of Congress’ constitutionally granted power of the purse. The administration also backed off a similar plan to withhold foreign aid last year and cut hundreds of millions of dollars in help to Central America this spring.

Diverting Homeland Security cash — Besides the national emergency declaration the president handed down earlier this year, his administration has also quietly transferred hundreds of millions of dollars to help with immigration enforcement. This summer, the Department of Homeland Security informed Congress it is diverting $271 million — including $155 million in federal disaster aid — to beef up funding for its immigration efforts. That move follows the administration’s controversial decision last year to shift disaster aid and other DHS funding toward immigration detention and deportation work.

Slow-walking State Department funds — Despite abandoning the idea of yanking back foreign aid as the fiscal year draws to a close on Sept. 30, the Trump administration is still keeping State Department spending on a short leash. Initially, OMB said that cash could only be spent at a daily rate of 2 percent, more recently shifting to a weekly rate that varies in amount.

Shifting money to the border wall — The president notched a victory this summer when the Supreme Court allowed his administration to continue taking money from other accounts to build the border wall. But that doesn’t mean the court will feel the same about similar suits brought by the likes of the House of Representatives and 20 states.

Freezing Ukraine assistance — The president said this week that he didn't use the threat of withholding foreign aid to persuade Ukraine to investigate his political opponent. But his administration did admit last month to withholding $250 million in military assistance to the country, before releasing those funds following bipartisan blowback.

Dipping into National Parks fees — During the five-week government shutdown earlier this year, the Trump administration siphoned cash from National Park Service fees to keep services going as the president held the line on demanding border wall funding. From the beginning, lawmakers warned that the move was out of bounds. And now the government’s own watchdog has ruled that the administration violated federal laws with that money grab.