Last updated: July 16, 2026. This page lists the most egregious violations. See also additional federal spending violations.
No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.
[The president] shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed…
| Date | Administration Action | Why does this violate the Constitution? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| February 2025 | Terminated over 600 grants at the National Institutes of Health despite a court order blocking these actions. | There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the Presidency the power to override Congressional spending mandates. The judge hearing the case — a 40-year veteran of the bench — said “I’ve never seen government racial discrimination like this” and ordered the grants restored. | In August 2025, the Supreme Court allowed roughly $800 million in terminations to stand during litigation on procedural grounds, while leaving intact the lower court’s holding that the directives behind them were unlawful. |
| April 2025 | Terminated more than 1,400 already-awarded National Endowment for the Humanities grants. | In May 2026, a federal judge held the mass cancellation “unlawful, unconstitutional, ultra vires, and without legal effect” — violating the First Amendment through viewpoint discrimination and the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee, and lacking any statutory authority. | |
| May 2025 | Withheld or delayed congressionally appropriated funds so often that the Government Accountability Office — the nonpartisan statutory arbiter of federal spending law — opened more than 40 impoundment investigations and formally found at least six violations of the Impoundment Control Act in 2025 alone: electric-vehicle charger funds, library services funds, school energy funds, Head Start, and FEMA food, shelter, and services funds. | The Impoundment Control Act enforces Congress’s constitutional power of the purse: a president may not simply refuse to spend appropriated money. Each GAO decision concluded the administration illegally withheld or delayed funds. | On the EV-charger funds, a federal judge separately ordered over $1 billion released to 14 states. The cumulative pattern is unprecedented in the law’s 50-year history. |
| July 2025 | Officially shut down USAID — a congressionally created and funded agency — having terminated roughly 86% of its programs (over 5,300 programs worth ~$76 billion) and nearly all of its staff, without any act of Congress. | A president cannot unilaterally dissolve an agency established by statute or refuse to spend its appropriations; ongoing litigation alleges violations of the Appropriations Clause, the separation of powers, and the Impoundment Control Act. | Congress subsequently declined to abolish USAID in the FY2026 appropriations law — which the administration then also refused to fully spend (see below). |
| August 2025 | Canceled $4.9 billion in congressionally appropriated foreign aid via a “pocket rescission” — submitting the cancellation request so close to the fiscal year’s end that the funds would expire before Congress’s 45-day review window closed. It was the first use of the maneuver since 1977. | GAO has repeatedly concluded pocket rescissions are illegal under the Impoundment Control Act; the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee agreed the move is “unlawful and not permitted.” A federal judge blocked the withholding. | The Supreme Court stayed that order, allowing ~$4 billion to lapse while litigation continues. The budget director publicly said he intends to repeat the tactic. |
| October 2025 | On the first day of the government shutdown, canceled 321 clean-energy awards worth ~$7.5 billion — every one of them in a state that voted Democratic in 2024. | In January 2026, a federal court held the cancellations unconstitutional under the Fifth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee — the government admitted in court that “a primary reason” for selecting grants was “whether the grantee was located in a ‘Blue State.’” | The administration simultaneously froze ~$31 billion in infrastructure funds for New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Boston, and Baltimore as explicit shutdown pressure on Democratic leaders; those funds were unfrozen as part of the deal ending the shutdown. |
| November 2025 | Refused to pay November SNAP food assistance to roughly 42 million people during the government shutdown — the first lapse in the program’s 61-year history — despite ~$5 billion in congressionally provided contingency funds, and after a court ordered payment, resisted and ordered states to claw back benefits already issued. | Two federal courts ruled the suspension unlawful — the contingency appropriation existed precisely for this situation — and the administration’s resistance drew judicial rebukes for non-compliance. | The administration withdrew its Supreme Court application when the shutdown ended and the funding law made SNAP whole. |
| June 2026 | Eight months into fiscal year 2026, continued refusing to spend foreign-aid funds mandated in the appropriations law the president himself signed — labeling more than $500 million in global health money “unallocated” and ignoring a bipartisan Senate letter demanding the funds be used “consistent with the law.” | Withholding duly appropriated, signed-into-law funds is impoundment in violation of the Impoundment Control Act and the Appropriations Clause; senators of both parties and budget-law experts describe it as unlawful defiance of Congress — “a huge grab of power.” | House Appropriations Committee Democrats estimated at least $410 billion was being blocked government-wide as of late May 2026. |