Trump administration restores public spending data after legal fight

Desmond Milligan · August 19

The Trump administration restored a public database that showed how funding is apportioned to federal agencies following a recent order by a federal appeals court.

Public access to the data was restored over the weekend, not long after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ordered the website be restored in a unanimous ruling.

“To hear the Government tell it, the separation of powers hangs in the balance and only this Court can set things right. But when it comes to appropriations, our Constitution has made plain that congressional power is at its zenith,” U.S. Circuit Judge Karen Henderson wrote last week.

Under the apportionments process, agencies are given limited authority to spend funding allocated by Congress in installments.

Congress required the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to implement an “automated system to post each document apportioning an appropriation” as part of a legislative funding deal signed into law in 2022. The office was also ordered to “operate and maintain” the automated system for “fiscal year 2023 and each fiscal year thereafter” in another funding bill that also became law that year.

But the website went dark earlier this year after the Trump administration said it could not continue to operate the system, arguing it contained sensitive information that could pose a threat to national security.

Advocates have hailed the return of the tracker as a major win for transparency, as the administration has faced legal challenges in recent months over efforts to freeze funding already allocated by Congress.

“Publicly disclosing apportionments helps protect against any illegal abuses or withholdings of funds as President Trump attempted to do when he sought to illegally withhold federal funds from Ukraine in exchange for political favors,” Donald K. Sherman, executive director and chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said in a statement.

“We are gratified that Congress and the public will not be left in the dark while this case proceeds, and we will continue to fight for the permanent availability of this information.”

Cerin Lindgrensavage, counsel for Protect Democracy, also said in a statement Monday that access to the apportionment process “means we can finally see where OMB may have abused this tool to unlawfully delay spending.”

Both groups sued the administration over the website’s previous takedown.

However, Democrats have continued to raise scrutiny over the administration’s revival of the database, with some describing the website’s return as a “partial restoration.”

“It should never have required months in court for this administration to begin complying with a truly basic and straightforward transparency requirement,” Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement on Monday.

“OMB must now ensure every last bit of this important budget data that has been hidden is promptly made public, as the court has ordered, and that the data is posted within days, as the law requires, going forward.”

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