- United States
- Va.
- Letter
Trump is repeatedly violating the Constitution by illegally withholding funds that Congress has already appropriated. Multiple federal judges—and now the Government Accountability Office, for the third time—have confirmed that this kind of impoundment is unlawful.
This isn’t just a technical issue. It undermines Congress’s core constitutional power of the purse and directly violates the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, a reform law passed after Watergate to prevent exactly this kind of abuse. Illegally impounding funds was a key part of Trump’s first impeachment, when he withheld military aid to Ukraine.
Now, he’s doing it again—across the government. The DOGE website even boasts about cutting $190 billion in appropriated funds. If Congress doesn’t act, it sends the message that the president can ignore the law and rewrite the Constitution at will.
Please speak out. The balance of power depends on it.