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GAO’s Determination that Trump Broke the Law Raises the Stakes of Senate Exoneration

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Since Mick Mulvaney confessed to being in violation of the Impoundment Control Act back on October 17, I’ve been waiting for that fact to take on the constitutional import that it should in the impeachment process. Finally, today, on the day the Senate starts Trump’s trial, it has done so.

That’s because the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan body that works for both the Democratic majority House and the Republican majority Senate, has deemed DOD’s withholding of defense support for Ukraine illegal under the Impoundment Control Act.

GAO’s findings are modest. It does not get into whether Trump’s actual purpose for withholding the funds — which evidence suggests involved extorting Ukraine to produce dirt on Joe Biden — is legal or not. It accepts that Trump had a policy purpose for delaying the funds, without getting into what that policy was. But even on those terms — even if it was done for Trump’s cover story purpose of combatting corruption — GAO finds that withholding the funds was illegal.

As it lays out, Trump cannot simply ignore Congress’ appropriations. If he wants to act contrary to appropriations, he either has to ask Congress to cancel the funds — a rescission — or delay it for one of a narrow set of reasons. Both actions require notice to Congress.

Not only did Trump’s Office of Management and Budget not provide full notice to Congress, but since the funds were ultimately spent, the delay could only be considered a deferral, and the purpose OMB stated in the explanation they did offer does not fall under the acceptable purposes of a deferral.

An appropriations act is a law like any other; therefore, unless Congress has enacted a law providing otherwise, the President must take care to ensure that appropriations are prudently obligated during their period of availability.  See B‑329092, Dec. 12, 2017 (the ICA operates on the premise that the President is required to obligate funds appropriated by Congress, unless otherwise authorized to withhold).  In fact, Congress was concerned about the failure to prudently obligate according to its Congressional prerogatives when it enacted and later amended the ICA.  See generally, H.R. Rep. No. 100-313, at 66–67 (1987); see also  S. Rep. No. 93-688, at 75 (1974) (explaining that the objective was to assure that “the practice of reserving funds does not become a vehicle for furthering Administration policies and priorities at the expense of those decided by Congress”).

The Constitution grants the President no unilateral authority to withhold funds from obligation.  See B‑135564, July 26, 1973.  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 ICA.  See 2 U.S.C. §§ 681–688.  The ICA separates impoundments into two exclusive categories—deferrals and rescissions. The President may temporarily withhold funds from obligation—but not beyond the end of the fiscal year in which the President transmits the special message—by proposing a “deferral.”[4]  2 U.S.C. § 684.  The President may also seek the permanent cancellation of funds for fiscal policy or other reasons, including the termination of programs for which Congress has provided budget authority, by proposing a “rescission.”[5]  2 U.S.C. § 683.

In either case, the ICA requires that the President transmit a special message to Congress that includes the amount of budget authority proposed for deferral or rescission and the reason for the proposal.  2 U.S.C. §§ 683–684.  These special messages must provide detailed and specific reasoning to justify the withholding, as set out in the ICA.  See 2 U.S.C. §§ 683–684; B‑237297.4, Feb. 20, 1990 (vague or general assertions are insufficient to justify the withholding of budget authority).  The burden to justify a withholding of budget authority rests with the executive branch.

There is no assertion or other indication here that OMB intended to propose a rescission.  Not only did OMB not submit a special message with such a proposal, the footnotes in the apportionment schedules, by their very terms, established dates for the release of amounts withheld.  The only other authority, then, for withholding amounts would have been a deferral.

The ICA authorizes the deferral of budget authority in a limited range of circumstances:  to provide for contingencies; to achieve savings made possible by or through changes in requirements or greater efficiency of operations; or as specifically provided by law.  2 U.S.C. § 684(b).  No officer or employee of the United States may defer budget authority for any other purpose.  Id. 

Here, OMB did not identify—in either the apportionment schedules themselves or in its response to us—any contingencies as recognized by the ICA, savings or efficiencies that would result from a withholding, or any law specifically authorizing the withholding.  Instead, the footnote in the apportionment schedules described the withholding as necessary “to determine the best use of such funds.”  See OMB Response, at 2; Attachment.  In its response to us, OMB described the withholding as necessary to ensure that the funds were not spent “in a manner that could conflict with the President’s foreign policy.”  OMB Response, at 9.

The ICA does not permit deferrals for policy reasons.  See B‑237297.3, Mar. 6, 1990; B-224882, Apr. 1, 1987.  OMB’s justification for the withholding falls squarely within the scope of an impermissible policy deferral.  Thus, the deferral of USAI funds was improper under the ICA.

Moreover, the footnotes that OMB used in lieu of notifying Congress that Trump was blowing off Congress weren’t proper, either, GAO found. That’s because DOD continued to do what it needed to do to appropriate the funds (something that the bureaucrats at DOD did in part to execute the will of the President, but partly to cover their own ass). The only reason the funds were withheld was OMB’s order, which amounts to a reportable impoundment.

OMB asserts that its actions are not subject to the ICA because they constitute a programmatic delay.  OMB Response, at 7, 9.  It argues that a “policy development process is a fundamental part of program implementation,” so its impoundment of funds for the sake of a policy process is programmatic.  Id., at 7.  OMB further argues that because reviews for compliance with statutory conditions and congressional mandates are considered programmatic, so too should be reviews undertaken to ensure compliance with presidential policy prerogatives.  Id., at 9.

OMB’s assertions have no basis in law.  We recognize that, even where the President does not transmit a special message pursuant to the procedures established by the ICA, it is possible that a delay in obligation may not constitute a reportable impoundment.  See B‑329092, Dec. 12, 2017; B‑222215, Mar. 28, 1986. However, programmatic delays occur when an agency is taking necessary steps to implement a program, but because of factors external to the program, funds temporarily go unobligated.  B‑329739, Dec. 19, 2018; B‑291241, Oct. 8, 2002; B‑241514.5, May 7, 1991.  This presumes, of course, that the agency is making reasonable efforts to obligate.  B‑241514.5, May 7, 1991.  Here, there was no external factor causing an unavoidable delay.  Rather, OMB on its own volition explicitly barred DOD from obligating amounts.

GAO notes that the communications it got from DOD and OMB were insufficient. It also notes that State gave it nothing, as it tried to figure out whether that delay, too, broke the law.

As I noted back in October, first Trump refused to tell Congress what was going on with the funds, even though members of both parties, together, and both houses, together, asked. But then Trump exacerbated the crime by refusing to explain all this after the fact. It’s not just that Trump is withholding documentation from the impeachment inquiry. It’s also withholding documentation Congress is entitled to under its appropriation function.

In spite of the fact that a core part of the Republican brand is a claim to care about whether the Executive Branch spends money in the way Congress tells it to, this will likely not make a difference in the Senate impeachment process. Trump has flouted the power of the purse that is normally fiercely guarded by both parties in Congress. But the Republicans will still — even with this nonpartisan proof that Trump has screwed them over — vote not to remove him from office.

Which will mean, in doing so, Republican Senators will sanction even more unconstitutional acts from this President.

Day 33: Happy Some Saint’s Day

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I know, it’s St. Patrick’s Day, not just any saint but the patron saint of Ireland. It’s certainly not St. Trump’s Day, that’s for sure.

Trump’s budget proposal is the furthest thing from saintly — cutting federal funding to the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) is just one disgusting example. CDBG provides grants to the Meals on Wheels (MoW) program, which feeds the home-ridden elderly and disabled as well as kids in after-school programs. Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney says MoW is “not showing any results.” No more fishes and loaves for you, sickly/old/poor people, if Congress goes along with this nonsense. I guess your desiccated, malnourished corpses are the kind of results this administration wants to see.

According to St. Patrick’s ‘Confessio‘ — an autobiography-cum-confession — he overcame kidnapping from Scotland, enslavement by the Irish, and eventually converted Irish to Catholicism. In contrast, Trump was born with a silver spoon and treated his fellow man (and some family) like crap throughout his lifetime. Definitely not saintly. And definitely not up to converting those who aren’t already his hardcore faithful adherents.

Stuff of the Irish:

Irish PM Enda Kenny visits Trump and asks for leniency for illegal Irish aliens — Let’s be frank about this issue: Trump’s probably fine with them (meaning Bannon is fine with them, too) because these aliens are probably white and Christian. Got to give it to PM Kenny, though, for this nice bit of snark:

“They say the Irish have the capacity to change everything…I just saw the president of the United States read from his script, entirely.”

Wonder if Trump was ballsy enough to go for an other conflict of interest and complain about the sea wall he wants for his Doobeg golf course resort.

British Brexit secretary David Davis says border checks between North Ireland and Ireland possible post-Brexit — He did qualify them as “light” customs checks, saying,

“There are already customs checks between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland because there are excise differences, but they are done in a very light way. … There would be customs checks, [but] that does not mean we demur from our position of wanting to have a very light border, no hard border.”

But wait…what do the Irish think of this?

Sinn Féin MEP tells Theresa May Brexit border checks in Ireland can go ‘where the sun don’t shine’ — And there it is. I didn’t even paraphrase that hed, that’s exactly what The Irish Post wrote. Here’s exactly what MEP Martina Anderson said:

“Theresa, your notion of a border, hard and soft, stick it where the sun doesn’t shine ‘cos you’re not putting it in Ireland.”

Ouch. No mincing words there.

Women won largest number of seats ever in North Ireland’s assembly election — Sinn Féin leads in gender parity as women represent 41% of its Member of the Legislative Assembly. Between the surge of women in NI’s National Assembly and the increased weighting of representation by Sinn Féin in both NI and Ireland’s National Parliament, the reaction toward the UK and Brexit will be quite different from expectations nine months ago.

Banks may be moving to Dublin from London because of Brexit — This report says Ireland is surprised; I don’t know why, given the amount of business conducted in English language in Dublin as compared to any other location like Paris, Brussels, or Frankfurt. Ireland has been a tax haven and a center for both insurance and technology for a couple decades, too. Perhaps Ireland ought to be more lenient toward educated illegal aliens from the U.S. if it’s looking to staff up its financial sector quickly.

Op-ed: ‘Another day, another Brexit lie exposed’ — Theresa May has only increased Irish sympathies for Scotland with her rejection of a second independence referendum, as if all the other Brexit fail wasn’t enough. Could this animus be enough to unite Ireland, but against Britain and its “Tory public schoolboys”?

That’s a wrap on this work week and Day 33 in our countdown to Tax Day. Don’t drink green beer. Just don’t.

OMB’s New Security Memo Suggests WikiLeaks Is Media

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A number of outlets are reporting on the OMB memo requiring agencies to review their security procedures in response to WikiLeaks.

Now, this memo is explicitly a response to WikiLeaks. It’s a follow-up on a memo sent in November that names WikiLeaks.

On November 28, 2010, departments and agencies that handle classified national security information were directed to establish assessment teams to review their implementation of safeguarding procedures. (Office of Management and Budget, Memorandum M-11-06, “WikiLeaks – Mishandling of Classified Information,” November 28, 2010.)

And one of the questions it directs agencies to ask names WikiLeaks (and, in a sign of the government’s nimbleness, OpenLeaks) specifically.

Do you capture evidence of pre-employment and/or post-employment activities or participation in on-line media data mining sites like WikiLeaks or Open Leaks?

But the delay–almost six months between Bradley Manning’s arrest and the November memo, and another month until this memo, sort of reminds me of the roughly eight month delay between the time Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to set his underwear on fire and the the time a bunch of grannies started getting groped at TSA security checkpoints.

Why the delay?

And from a document usability standpoint, this list of questions designed to help agencies identify weaknesses is a piece of shit. Trust me. No matter how good a bureaucrat is, asking them to use nine pages of nested bullets to improve a process is not going to work. This is simply not a credible process improvement effort.

I also wonder why it took WikiLeaks to initiate this effort. Just as an example, Los Alamos National Labs has been losing both storage media, computers, and BlackBerries going back a decade. You’d think the vulnerability of one of our nuclear labs would alert the government to our overall vulnerability to the loss of data via computer medium. Yet losing data to–presumably–our enemies did not trigger this kind of no-nonsense vulnerability assessment, WikiLeaks did.

The Russians and the Chinese are probably bummed that WikiLeaks will make it a teeny bit harder for them to spy on us.

All that said, Steven Aftergood makes one curious observation about the memo: this unusable list of nested bullets suggests that agencies should monitor employees’ contacts with the media.

Among other troubling questions, agencies are asked:  “Are all employees required to report their contacts with the media?”  This question seems out of place since there is no existing government-wide security requirement to report “contacts with the media.”  Rather, this is a security policy that is unique to some intelligence agencies, and is not to be found in any other military or civilian agencies. Its presence here seems to reflect the new “evolutionary pressure” on the government to adopt the stricter security policies of intelligence.

“I am not aware of any such requirement” to report on media contacts, a senior government security official told Secrecy News.  But he noted that the DNI was designated as Security Executive Agent for personnel security matters in the 2008 executive order 13467.  As a result, “I suspect that an IC requirement crept in” to the OMB memo.

I agree with Aftergood: it is troubling that an intelligence community requirement now seems to be applied to the federal workforce as a whole.

But isn’t this, at the same time, rather telling?

If a memo instituting new security reviews, explicitly written in response to WikiLeaks, institutes a policy of reviewing contacts with the media, doesn’t that suggest they consider WikiLeaks to be media?

Truck-Sized Loophole for Theft

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Howie’s right. The media ought to be paying more attention to Congressman Peter Welch’s call for an investigation into how a giant loophole got stuck into rules aiming to force companies to report contracting fraud.

House Democrats targeted a multibillion-dollar overseas contracting loophole Friday by vowing to investigate why — and how — it was slipped into plans to crack down on fraud in taxpayer-funded projects.

The inquiry will look at whether the exemption was added at the request of private firms, or their lobbyists, to escape having to report abuse in U.S. contracts performed abroad.

"Granting this safe harbor for overseas contractors flies in the face of reason," Rep. Peter Welch, D-Vt., wrote Friday asking the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to investigate. The panel monitors government procurement policy.

"By taking this action, the Bush administration is sending an unambiguous message: If you are a U.S. government contractor in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere overseas, you have a green light to defraud our government and waste taxpayer dollars," Welch wrote to Democratic leaders of the committee.

Basically, under voluntary reporting requirements, government contractors have been reporting less and less of the fraud that they’re committing. Go figure. So DOJ decided to make reporting of fraud mandatory. But someone–it looks like someone in Bush’s Office of Management and Budget (and Fraud Support, apparently)–snuck in a waiver of mandatory requirements for contractors working outside of the United States.

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