1. United States
2. Wash.
3. Letter

Demand a full congressional investigation into the Trump administration's admission that it cancelled federal grants based solely on whether recipients lived in "Blue States." This is not a policy dispute — it's the illegal use of taxpayer money as a partisan weapon, and it needs to stop now. The DOJ admitted in a December 2025 court filing that "a primary reason" for terminating Department of Energy grants was whether the grantee was located in a Blue State. By July 2026, the administration went further, conceding in Thakur v. Trump that grant cancellations were based "solely" on the political identity of the recipient's state. Georgetown law professor David Super called this "unprecedented to admit" and unprecedented to do. These weren't wasteful grants — DOE itself confirmed the grantees were performing well and there was no legitimate policy reason for the terminations. OMB Director Russ Vought publicly bragged about cancelling funding from 16 states, 16 of the 19 that voted for Kamala Harris. That's not governance — that's retribution funded by every American taxpayer, including the tens of millions of Republicans who live in those same states. Congress must act to restore these funds and put guardrails in place to prevent any administration from weaponizing the grant process this way again.