The U.S. government’s congressional watchdog determined that the Trump administration violated the law when it withheld hundreds of millions of dollars in security aid to Ukraine in the summer of 2019.
The Government Accountability Office released a nine-page report Thursday concluding the Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act when it held up $214 million appropriated by Congress to the Department of Defense to help Ukraine as it deals with a Russian incursion in the eastern part of its country.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” wrote the independent legislative branch agency’s general counsel Thomas H. Armstrong in the decision. “The Office of Management and Budget withheld funds for a policy reason, which is not permitted under the Impoundment Control Act. The withholding was not a programmatic delay. Therefore, we conclude that the Office of Management and Budget violated the Impoundment Control Act.”
The watchdog, led by Obama-appointed Comptroller General Gene Dodaro, is an arm of Congress, and the executive branch is not bound by its conclusions. And the Office of Management and Budget quickly pushed back.
“We disagree with GAO’s opinion,” OMB’s director communications Rachel Semmel told the Washington Examiner. “OMB uses its apportionment authority to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent consistent with the president’s priorities and with the law.”
A senior administration official told the Washington Examiner that the congressional watchdog’s findings “are a pretty clear overreach as they attempt to insert themselves into the media’s controversy of the day.” The official claimed the GAO “has a history of the flip-flops.”
“In their rush to insert themselves in the impeachment narrative, maybe they’ll have to reverse their opinion again,” the official said.
“The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation,” Armstrong wrote. “Instead, Congress has vested the President with strictly circumscribed authority to impound, or withhold, budget authority only in limited circumstances as expressly provided in the Impoundment Control Act.”
The determination comes the same day the impeachment trial against President Trump related to allegations of abuse of power in Ukraine is set to kick off in the Senate.
The two articles of impeachment passed by the House charge the president with soliciting Ukraine’s help to interfere in the 2020 election and with obstructing the congressional investigation into the matter. They are buttressed by language alleging this is a pattern of behavior by the president.
The impeachment effort followed an anonymous whistleblower complaint about a July 25 phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In the call, immediately after Zelensky expressed interest in purchasing anti-tank weaponry from the United States, Trump asked Zelensky “to do us a favor though,” to look into CrowdStrike and any possible Ukrainian election interference in 2016. Trump urged Zelensky later in the call to investigate “the other thing,” referring to allegations of corruption related to Joe and Hunter Biden, telling Zelensky to speak with his personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani and Attorney General William Barr.
Last month, the Trump administration responded to a November GAO inquiry by insisting “the executive branch has a duty to taxpayers to ensure that appropriations are spent wisely, in accordance with statutory requirements.”
“The President of the United States is required to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’ As part of carrying out this duty, the executive branch must ensure that Federal agencies spend appropriated funds in an efficient and effective manner, consistent with the purpose for which the funds were appropriated,” OMB general counsel Mark Paoletta wrote in a nine-page letter. “Pauses in obligational authority are necessary for proper stewardship of taxpayer funds.”
“OMB’s assertions have no basis in law,” the congressional watchdog countered on Thursday, saying the law “does not permit deferrals for policy reasons.”
The watchdog’s report said it is still investigating other potentially funds withheld last August, alleging the budget office held up some foreign military financing funds appropriated to the State Department for Ukraine. The watchdog said the budget office “may have delayed” $26.5 million when it held up some funds for six days and that another $141.5 million “may have been withheld while a congressional notification was considered by OMB.”
