“The Constitution’s text is clear that Congress must authorize appropriations and the president must “take Care” that those laws are “faithfully executed.” There is no basis in constitutional text or history for the president to claim open-ended power to impound funds in the manner of the OMB memo. In 1975, the Supreme Court rejected former President Richard Nixon’s claim to be able to spend less than Congress had appropriated. That ruling would have had to come out the other way if the president had a constitutional power to impound. (Perhaps aware of this reality, OMB issued a later memo claiming the freeze was not, in fact, an “impoundment.” But this is just a semantic sleight of hand: For entities that need federal funds this or next week in particular, there is no meaningful difference.)”
…
“If anything, the Supreme Court has tightened the constitutional leash on such unilateral claims of executive authority untethered from a statutory anchor. With Justice Neil Gorsuch leading the charge, it has stressed instead the need for clear authority from Congress for the exercise of any delegated power, including the power to write regulations. The OMB memo makes a mockery of those decisions by allowing the president to do with money what now isn’t allowed with regulations.
It is true that there is a scattering of past instances of impoundment. But these isolated cases largely concern foreign affairs and national security matters. In 1803, for example, Thomas Jefferson declined to spend funds for 15 gunboats for fear that they would upend secret talks with a foreign sovereign, Napoleonic France. Whatever unilateral presidential authority exists over foreign affairs cannot constitutionally be spread with reckless abandon to cover any or all domestic spending.
Past presidents have also confronted conflicts between a legislative command and Congress’ failure to appropriate funds to execute that command. There, presidents are forced to make a choice between dueling statutory orders. Courts rarely address these conflicts. But it is striking to note that in a 2012 case involving competing mandates, the Supreme Court rejected the executive’s claim to be able to withhold promised funds.”
…
“The impoundment power Trump’s White House asserts would drive a stake through Congress’ constitutional authority.
Exactly like the line-item veto invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1998, the claimed impoundment power is de facto power to selectively edit duly enacted laws. This claimed nonenforcement should elicit whiplash among conservatives. After all, it was red states such as Texas, aided by Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller, that once excoriated the Biden administration for negating federal laws on immigration via nonenforcement. (The Biden administration, however, could point to statutory conflicts that don’t exist in this case.)”
“The problem for Trump is that for all of his talk of prioritizing loyalty in his second term, he has staffed his administration with a number of conservative ideologues who could have very different ideas about what the government should be doing — none more influential than his likely soon-to-be budget director, Russ Vought.
Vought is a well-known quantity on Capitol Hill from his time as a staffer there, to say nothing of his work as a Project 2025 author and all-around warrior for small government. Republicans there saw his fingerprints on the spending freeze — or the “Vought memo,” as some are calling it.
“This has Russ’s name written all fucking over it,” said one GOP aide who works in appropriations, adding, ”I see a disparity between what Trump wants to do and what Russ wants to do.”
In other words, the battle between fiscal hawks and populists is set to rage not only on Capitol Hill and elsewhere in the coming months, but inside the White House itself.
“There’s an undercurrent of the old Republican Party at play where they’re like, ‘We’re going to cut benefits’ and all this,” the lawmaker said. “And like the new Republican Party is like, ‘Yeah, we don’t care about that.’””
“Anti-American fever peaked in Canada over the weekend after Trump announced the tariffs were on the way. At a pop-up DJ show in Montreal, a digital sign read “F—K TARIFFS.” On Saturday night in Ottawa, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was booed before the Senators went on to blow out the Minnesota Wild. The jeering continued through the weekend at NHL and NBA games across the country.”
“Republicans on the Hill are also largely giving Musk and Trump the benefit of the doubt, dismissing criticism from Democrats that they are infringing on their congressional powers. Instead, they are leaning on comments from one of their former colleagues — Secretary of State Marco Rubio — instead of directly grappling with Musk’s actions.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), asked if Trump has the ability to close USAID unilaterally, said the administration’s goal is to ferret out waste.
“I think it’s a lot more about finding out how the dollars are being spent, where they are going and whether or not they’re consistent with this administration’s and our country’s priorities,” he said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), chair of the Judiciary Committee, said that it is a “constitutional question” when asked if Trump can end USAID without congressional approval.
“It’s how you define the executive powers of the president of the United States,” he said, “and I can’t define that for you.”
Career government officials, Democratic lawmakers and nongovernmental organizations have scrambled to shine a light on Musk’s efforts, many of which they’ve argued he doesn’t have the legal authority to carry out absent approval from Congress. Even some conservatives have raised concerns over Musk’s actions. So far, though, they have been vastly outpaced by Musk, who has taken to his social media platform X to build public support for shock-and-awe efforts.
Though Musk posted on X throughout the weekend that it was time for USAID to “die” and bragged that he was “feeding USAID into the wood chipper,” it wasn’t until Monday afternoon that Democratic lawmakers held a press conference in hopes of saving the agency.
Likewise, days after Musk’s allies gained access to the Treasury Department’s payments system, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that he and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) would work on legislation stopping the “unlawful peddling.” Schumer said, “It’s like letting a tiger into a petting zoo and hoping for the best.””
“Beijing struck back on Tuesday after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed 10 percent tariffs against China, announcing levies of 15 percent on U.S. liquefied natural gas and coal, and 10 percent on crude oil, farm equipment and some autos.
Beijing also set further export controls on rare metals, and announced an anti-monopoly investigation into Google, the search engine owned by Alphabet, and a number of other U.S. companies.
The Chinese measures will take effect on Feb. 10, leaving time for Trump to talk to President Xi Jinping about how to avoid further trade escalation.”
…
“Beijing also filed a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO), invoking its dispute settlement procedure.”
“Trump allies are purging the Justice Department and FBI of perceived enemies. Elon Musk, empowered by Trump, has deployed a band of loyalists to take over the federal spending apparatus managed by the U.S. Treasury. Trump’s temporary pick to lead federal prosecutions in Washington says anyone who resists Musk’s efforts could be breaking “numerous laws.”
The White House is attempting to freeze virtually all federal grants, which nonprofits say is already wreaking havoc on programs for vulnerable Americans. With almost no notice, the administration has dismantled the agency responsible for international aid and offered millions of federal employees a buyout with questionable legal authority. Trump fired many of the internal watchdogs — inspectors general — who would review these decisions.”
…
“Many of Washington’s legal veterans say they’re most alarmed and perplexed by Musk and his amorphous role in efforts to make massive, abrupt and ill-explained changes to the operations of the federal government. He routinely uses his social media platform, X, to characterize some government-funded programs as “criminal” and relished, for example, putting USAID — the agency responsible for administering international aid programs — through a “wood chipper.” Those claims of illegality have been coupled with a chorus of Trump’s MAGA allies characterizing the agency as a hotbed of progressive causes, suggesting the agency drew Trump allies’ ire for political reasons.
Musk has sent a team of allies to take control of computer systems at Treasury and in the Office of Personnel Management, which are responsible for delivering appropriated funds and overseeing the entire federal workforce. It’s unclear what responsibilities they have. Amid reports some of those incursions have been met with pushback, Washington, D.C.’s interim U.S. Attorney Ed Martin — a conservative culture warrior who was a prominent conspiracy theorist about the Jan.6 attack — offered to use his office to protect Musk’s efforts.”
“the Department of Justice moved to fire several senior FBI executives — including the head of the Washington field office. Additionally, DOJ is demanding a list of FBI personnel who investigated the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.”
…
“I asked two scholars of FBI history if there was any precedent for this. Both said no. Agents can be fired for corruption or incompetence after a review, but a mass firing for participating in an investigation is unheard of, they said.”
…
“The firing of top officials could make the FBI less effective in critical areas such as counterterrorism. And mass firings of FBI staff involved in the January 6 investigation would serve as a warning to bureau employees about what happens if they investigate Trump’s political allies, corroding the independence the agency depends on to enforce federal law.”
“In exchange for the delay of these tariffs, the Mexican government agreed to send 10,000 national guard troops to its northern border while Trump vowed to stem the flow of American firearms into Mexico. Canada, meanwhile, pledged to implement its 1.3 billion border security plan (which it had already enacted in December). Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that he was “very pleased with this initial outcome, and the Tariffs announced on Saturday will be paused for a 30 day period to see whether or not a final Economic deal with Canada can be structured.””