WASHINGTON, DC – Following news that a federal judge has halted President Trump’s attempted funding freeze, issuing a temporary restraining order to the President’s executive order, Congressional Integrity Project Senior Advisor Kyle Herrig issued the following statement on behalf of the Checks and Balances War Room:
“This is yet another win for the American people and a loss for Russell Vought and Donald Trump. At least two judges so far have seen through the dangerous attempts of the current administration to circumvent Congress’s power of the purse.
Senate Republicans have to ask themselves if they want to keep standing alongside Russ Vought in his unconstitutional fantasy for an imperial presidency while watching him derail their legislative agenda.
As the Judge’s opinion reads in granting the temporary restraining order, ‘Congress has not given the Executive limitless power to broadly and indefinitely pause all funds that it has expressly directed to specific recipients and purposes and therefore the Executive’s actions violate the separation of powers.’
Further, the Judge writes: ‘The Executive Branch has a duty to align federal spending and action with the will of the people as expressed through congressional appropriations, not through ‘Presidential priorities.’”
Finally, the Judge cites an opinion of current Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh from when he was on the D.C. Circuit Court, which reads: “[A] President sometimes has policy reasons … for wanting to spend less than the full amount appropriated by Congress for a particular project or program. But in those circumstances, even the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend the funds. Instead, the President must propose the rescission of funds, and Congress then may decide whether to approve a rescission bill.”
BACKGROUND ON RUSS VOUGHT’S DANGEROUS PLANS:
Vought falsely contends that the Trump administration can unilaterally cancel spending appropriated by Congress, through a process known as impoundment.
- Vought has built an agenda for using impoundment and challenging the Constitution, allowing Trump to ignore the will of Congress. Vought’s Center for Renewing America and Project 2025 created the roadmap for the President to deploy impoundments and ignore laws passed by Congress without a vote.
- Impoundment violates the Constitution. Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 of the Constitution (the Appropriations Clause) states: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” This clause is “the power or the purse” exclusively vested to Congress. It ensures Congress—as the representatives of the people—retains sole authority over federal spending decisions. The Framers gave this power to Congress to prevent unilateral control of public funds by the executive.
Russ Vought is a leading proponent of impoundment.
- Vought advocated for impoundment while serving as the OMB director at the end of Trump’s first term, saying in a letter that the Impoundment Control Act “is unworkable in practice and should be significantly reformed or repealed.”
- This letter came after Trump’s OMB violated the law and used impoundment to withhold aid from Ukraine while Vought was deputy director.
- After leaving the Trump administration, Vought founded a think tank that, together with Project 2025, creates the roadmap for deploying impoundments to ignore Congressional laws without a vote.
- Vought’s think tank has encouraged $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, more than $600 billion in cuts to the Affordable Care Act.
At the OMB, Vought would lead Trump’s effort to ignore spending laws passed by Congress and usurp Congress’s power of the purse.
- Vought served in leadership the last time Trump’s OMB helped him illegally use impoundment for his political agenda.
- Vought himself wrote a chapter in Project 2025 outlining how OMB could help a president amass unchecked executive power.
###