Tag: congressional investigations
Project 2025 Outlines Trump's Plan To Seize Autocratic Power Over Spending

Project 2025 Outlines Trump's Plan To Seize Autocratic Power Over Spending

A partner organization in a large conservative effort to provide policy and personnel recommendations to the next Republican administration, known as Project 2025, has become a leading advocate for the radical position that the president should have broad latitude to refuse to carry out Congressionally mandated spending.

The ramifications of such a policy would be wide-reaching and could potentially threaten funding for the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, or other conservative targets within the federal government.

The group pushing for this major expanse of presidential power is the Center for Renewing America, a MAGA-aligned think tank that has deployed several of its top figures to make its argument across right-wing broadcast and digital media. Its most recent salvo came in June, when CRA released a white paper arguing that a 1974 law restricting a president from unilaterally refusing to spend funds allocated by Congress — the so-called “impoundment” power — represented an improper break from historical precedent. Instead, CRA argued that the White House should have the authority to halt Congressional spending virtually at will.

“Congress’s use of its power of the purse to make it illegal for the President to intentionally spend less than the full amount of what appropriated was norm-breaking, unprecedented, and unconstitutional,” CRA senior fellow Mark Paoletta wrote with his co-authors David Shapiro and Brandon Stras. Paoletta and Shaprio have written op-eds advancing the same argument at The Hill and right-wing blog The Federalist.

Paoletta’s executive branch power grab is an implicit goal of Project 2025, the right-wing policy and staffing initiative organized by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. The Center for Renewing America is one of more than 100 partner organizations on Project 2025’s advisory board; its founder, Russ Vought, was the director of the Office of Management and Budget under former President Donald Trump and remains a major figure in MAGA media, in addition to being an open Christian nationalist.

As Vought toldThe New York Times, describing his organization’s broader goal of remaking the federal government: “What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence and seize them.”

Although the impoundment power doesn’t come up in Project 2025’s policy book — Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise — it’s easy to see how it fits in with the effort’s larger goal of transforming the federal government. A second Trump administration could theoretically withhold funds outright or use that threat to pressure career staffers perceived to be insufficiently deferential to the White House.

The ramifications of such a policy would be wide-reaching and could potentially threaten funding for the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, or other conservative targets within the federal government.

The potential targets of such a scheme are laid out in black and white in Project 2025’s Mandate. The book takes aim at the Department of Health and Human Services for its pro-LGBTQ programs and directs the department to “issue guidance reemphasizing that states are free to defund Planned Parenthood in their state Medicaid plans.” It also calls for drastic cuts to the Department of Energy, shrinking the EPA, and for the total elimination of the Department of Education. The Department of Justice would likely be empowered to target reformist district attorneys and directed to slash anti-discrimination efforts.

The CRA paper is an attempt to undermine the 1974 Impoundments Control Act, which Congress passed after former President Richard Nixon refused to spend federally allocated funds on “water pollution control, education and health programs and highway and housing construction,” according to The New York Times. Nixon approached the impoundment power as a tool to further centralize power within the office of the President and pursue a reactionary agenda that ran counter to the will of Congress, providing a possible historical template for CRA.

Like Paoletta, Vought has publicly opposed the 1974 law. On X (formerly Twitter), Vought wrote: “Making Impoundment Great Again!”

In another post, the Center for Renewing America’s X account paraphrased Vought’s description of the impoundment power as “our secret weapon to totally dismantle the WOKE & WEAPONIZED federal bureaucracy.” That post linked to a Real Clear Politics article that directly quoted Vought as arguing that “when you think that a law is unconstitutional,” referring to the Impoundment Control Act, a future Trump administration should “push the envelope.”

In February, Vought appeared on Fox Business to foreshadow the recently released CRA report. “The loss of impoundment authority — which 200 years of presidents enjoyed — was the original sin in eliminating the ability for a branch-on-branch to control spending,” Vought said. Other budgetary goals he named included “spending reductions,” “bureaucracy crushing,” and “welfare reform.”

According to The Washington Post, Vought made a similar comment on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast. “Presidents had the ability to impound funds for 200 years until a bad law got passed that we think is unconstitutional under President Nixon,” Vought said, “We want to go back in a different direction.”

Another CRA figure, who has advanced a radical theory of executive authority in other contexts, has also argued against the Impoundment Control Act. Last July, CRA senior fellow Jeffrey Clark also appeared on War Room to discuss his “fight against the administrative state,” in the host’s words.

“President Nixon really cracked the whip and was really using his historical impoundment powers,” Clark said. “And then when he was weak during Watergate, Congress passed this Impoundment Control Act to try to take that power away from the president.”

“So what I’m working on, essentially, are the constitutional arguments for why that was wrong and various ways in which the Impoundment Control Act is just flatly unconstitutional,” Clark continued.

During the final weeks of Trump’s administration, Clark — then a lawyer in the Department of Justice — attempted to overturn the results of the 2020 election by pressuring the department to claim it had “identified significant concerns” with vote totals in crucial states and should send “a separate slate of electors supporting Donald J. Trump,” according to congressional testimony.

Though it remains publicly unclear which departments, agencies, or programs a second Trump administration could arbitrarily defund, he’s already shown a willingness to use federal funds as a bludgeon in his own personal protection racket. During his first term, Trump tried to withhold roughly $400 million in foreign military aid in order to pressure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to provide him with dirt on the Biden family, which led to his first impeachment.

On X, Vought celebrated his organization’s white paper arguing against the Impoundment Control Act, which he promised was the “first of many” on the topic.

“Why did we found the Center for Renewing America?” he wrote. “To write papers like this.”

Reprinted with permission from Media Matters.

Trump Storms Out Of Meeting With Democrats, Then Rants In Rose Garden

Trump Storms Out Of Meeting With Democrats, Then Rants In Rose Garden

Trump angrily stormed out of a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday after demanding that Congress stop investigating his administration’s crimes.

“Trump walked in to meeting with Dems on infrastructure, did not shake anyone’s hand or sit in his seat,” HuffPost reporter Igor Bobic tweeted Wednesday, citing a source familiar with what happened.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Trump will refuse to continue his promised negotiations with Democrats in Congress on infrastructure and drug prices until Congress finishes its investigations into him.

“[Trump] objected to the continued investigation of obstruction of justice, he said he cooperated and gave his side of the story, as we’ve heard before, said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), who was present for the unprecedented meltdown.

Trump was upset at Pelosi for saying earlier in the day that said Trump was engaging in a “cover up.”

The private angry display was followed up by a bizarre public event in the Rose Garden of the White House.

“I walked into the room and I told Senator Schumer, Speaker Pelosi, I want to do infrastructure … but you know what? You can’t do it under these circumstances, So get these phony investigations over with,” Trump said.

The White House press office, led by press secretary Sarah Sanders, handed out childish leaflets to the press with “statistics” that purported to show why the investigations should be dropped.

During the event, Trump also berated members of the press for accurately reporting on the Mueller Report’s findings that he obstructed justice, and on the ongoing congressional investigations into the findings.

“This whole thing was a takedown attempt at the president of the United States, and honestly you ought to be ashamed of yourselves for the way you’ve reported so dishonestly,” Trump told the assembled reporters, apparently referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

Trump now refuses to do the job he swore an oath to do because Congress is doing its basic constitutional oversight duties to investigate his many alleged crimes and abuses of power.

Published with permission of The American Independent. 

IMAGE: President Trump speaking in White House Rose Garden on Wednesday.

Biographer Foresees ‘Harrowing’ Experience For Trump As Probe Unfolds

Biographer Foresees ‘Harrowing’ Experience For Trump As Probe Unfolds

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Trump biographer Tim O’Brien predicts that the next few months are going to be very unpleasant for the president, as House Democrats conduct a thorough probe of his personal finances.

Writing in Bloomberg, O’Brien draws on his own experience of getting sued by Trump last decade to discuss the president’s shady financial dealings that could get him into trouble for insurance fraud, among other crimes.

“Scrutiny of Trump’s insurance dealings is just the beginning of what is going to be a long, meandering and possibly harrowing experience for the president, his family, longtime employees, many of his business partners and the White House,” he writes. “Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, attorneys general in Virginia, New York and the District of Columbia, five committees within the House of Representatives and, now, banking and insurance regulators, are all putting the Trump Organization and the president’s financial and political dealings under a wide array of microscopes.”

O’Brien notes that we already know of one shady character in Trump’s orbit who is scheduled to testify before Congress: Felix Sater, the Russian-American former mobster who worked with former “fixer” Michael Cohen to negotiate with Russian officials to build a Trump Tower in Moscow even as he was running for president.

O’Brien describes Sater as a “career criminal” and says he could offer information about not just the Moscow project, but also the Trump Soho hotel project that has been scrutinized as a potential vehicle for international money laundering.

Looking at all these potential targets for investigations, O’Brien concludes that many of the president’s closest allies might turn on him to save themselves from legal jeopardy.

“If Cohen is any indication… many, if not everybody, at the Trump Organization and elsewhere may decide to protect themselves before they protect the president,” he writes. “Investigators have landed on the money trail.”

IMAGE: Donald Trump with Felix H. Sater (right) and Tevfik Arif at the official unveiling of Trump SoHo in September 2007, when it was still under construction. Credit Mark Von Holden/WireImage

White House Stonewalling Congress To Block Investigations

White House Stonewalling Congress To Block Investigations

The Trump administration is refusing to cooperate with at least 30 separate investigations, according to a Politicoreport published Wednesday.

Democrats are conducting vigorous oversight related to Trump’s conversations with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump’s family separation policy which resulted in jailing babies, security clearances for Trump’s family over the objections of the intelligence community, and many more issues.

In response, the White House is refusing to turn over documents and engaging in delay tactics to stymie the ability of Congress to do their job. Democrats on 12 separate House committees say the Trump team is obstructing 30 different investigations, according to Politico.

The stonewalling comes even as Trump initially promised to cooperate with congressional investigations. After House Judiciary Chair Jerry Nadler sent 81 letters seeking documents and information, Trump seemed nonplussed, saying, “I cooperate all the time with everybody.”

But a few days later, Trump had one of his classic morning meltdowns, going on an unhinged rant that accused Nadler and Democrats of being “stone cold CRAZY.”

Trump’s position on transparency is not tied to any sort of political philosophy related to separation of powers. Instead, it’s tied to his own political agenda.

When Republicans controlled Congress, Trump ordered the intelligence community to declassify secret documents because Republicans in Congress wanted to see them. When it suits him, Trump will bend the rules to share information with Congress.

But now that Democrats are in charge, Trump and his cronies are determined to keep nefarious activities hidden.

The new majority is not without options, according to Politico. If Trump officials continue to refuse to cooperate, Congress has the power to issue subpoenas requiring officials to testify and turn over documents. If Trump officials defy the subpoena, the House can vote to hold them in contempt of Congress and then take them to court.

Voters swept Democrats into power in the 2018 midterms with a mandate to hold Trump and his crime-infested administration accountable. Congressional investigations are one way Democrats plan to do this, no matter how uncomfortable that may be for Trump.

Published with permission of The American Independent.

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