Last updated: July 16, 2026. This page lists additional violations beyond the most egregious cases.
| Date | Administration Action | Why does this violate the Constitution? | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 2025 | Signed an executive order to freeze grants that were promised to farms under the Inflation Reduction Act after the farmers entered into contracts with the expectation that they will receive the funding. | These funds were appropriated by Congress, and their suspension is a violation of the separation of powers. | |
| February 2025 | The EPA froze and terminated billions of dollars of grants that were allocated by Congress. | There is nothing in the Constitution that gives the Presidency the power to override Congressional spending mandates. | Litigation over the $20 billion Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund continues: an appeals panel initially sided with the EPA, but the full appeals court vacated that decision and reheard the case in February 2026. |
| February 2025 | Four agencies — NIH, and later the Departments of Energy and Defense and the NSF — successively tried to slash reimbursement of universities’ indirect research costs to a flat 15%, cutting billions in support Congress had funded. | Every cap was struck down or blocked: courts found them unlawful, retroactive, contrary to appropriations riders Congress had repeatedly enacted, and “arbitrary and capricious”. | The agencies attempted essentially the same policy serially after each court loss. |
| March 2025 | Suspended the activities of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia, which were started to counter Communist propaganda. | The news group was established by Congress and a judge ruled that the administration must continue funding the agency. | In July 2025, a federal judge ordered the agency to disburse all remaining appropriated funds, finding its conduct violated the law; in March 2026, the same judge ruled the agency’s head was illegally appointed, voiding her directives, including mass layoffs at Voice of America. |
| March 2025 | Signed an executive order cutting $11.4 billion to state and local health departments and health organizations. | Congress appropriated this money during the COVID-19 Pandemic and the president does not have the authority to overturn Congressional spending. | A coalition of 23 states won a preliminary injunction in May 2025 barring the clawback. |
| March 2025 | Attempted to shut down three Congressionally-created federal agencies: the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Minority Business Development Agency, and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. | The president cannot unilaterally dismantle agencies created and funded by Congress and a judge has blocked the order. | In June 2025, GAO formally determined that withholding the library agency’s funds violated the Impoundment Control Act. |
| March 2025 | Attempted to cancel over $1.1 billion in Covid-related funding to K-12 schools. | This money was appropriated by Congress and the president cannot brazenly rescind federal funding. | |
| April 2025 | Placed 85% of AmeriCorps staff on leave, discharged corps members, and terminated roughly $400 million in grants. | A federal judge found the gutting of a congressionally created and funded agency without congressional approval likely unlawful and ordered programs restored in 24 states. | In August 2025, the administration agreed to release over $184 million in withheld AmeriCorps funds rather than defend the withholding in court. |
| April 2025 | Terminated FEMA’s multi-billion-dollar Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities program, canceling hundreds of hazard-mitigation projects across the country. | In December 2025, a federal judge ruled the termination violated the separation of powers, the Appropriations and Spending Clauses, and federal administrative law, and ordered it reversed. | In March 2026, the court had to give FEMA a 21-day deadline after compliance delays. |
| April 2025 | The National Science Foundation terminated roughly 1,600 research grants worth over $1 billion, including congressionally mandated programs for broadening participation in science. | Lawsuits by states and research associations allege the terminations usurped congressional authority by eliminating funding required by law. | A court declined to restore the grants on jurisdictional grounds while allowing forward-looking challenges to proceed; an appeals court later required reinstatement of terminated University of California grants. |
| June 2025 | Ordered a “pause” of operations at all contractor-run Job Corps centers nationwide, which would have displaced tens of thousands of low-income young people from the statutory residential job-training program. | A federal judge blocked the shutdown, finding the department could not suspend a congressionally created and funded program “without congressional approval.” | |
| July 2025 | Told states it would not disburse ~$6.8 billion in education grants — after-school programs, English learners, migrant education, teacher training, and adult education — that federal law required to flow on July 1. | Twenty-four states sued, alleging violations of the appropriations statutes, the Impoundment Control Act, and the separation of powers. | Under litigation and bipartisan congressional pressure, the administration released all the funds by July 25. |
| July 2025 | Revoked $4 billion in already-obligated federal grants for California’s high-speed rail project. | California’s lawsuit alleged the revocation was arbitrary, pretextual, and political punishment of the state — part of the administration’s documented pattern of politically targeted fund withdrawals. | California later dropped the suit, choosing to fund the project with state revenue — the weakest case on this page, included for completeness. |
| August 2025 | The EPA terminated the entire $7 billion Solar for All grant program — serving over 900,000 low-income households — claiming a new law had rescinded its authority, even though that law rescinded only unobligated administrative funds, not the $7 billion already obligated to grantees. | More than 20 states and grantees sued, alleging the termination unilaterally and illegally canceled congressionally appropriated, already-obligated funds. | Litigation ongoing as of mid-2026. |
| October 2025 | Sought to wind down the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau by attempting mass layoffs of over 1,000 employees and then refusing to request the agency’s statutory funding from the Federal Reserve on a novel legal theory, threatening to zero out the congressionally established agency. | Only Congress can defund or abolish the bureau it created. A federal judge ruled the funding theory invalid in December 2025 and ordered the agency to request its funds, which it did under court order in January 2026. | An appeals court’s injunction blocking the mass firings remains in place; in June 2026 the full court refused to let the administration resume dismantling the bureau. See also the earlier CFPB layoffs entry on the illegal actions pages. |
| March 2026 | Halfway through fiscal year 2026, NIH had obligated only ~15% of its ~$38 billion in appropriated grant funds and awarded fewer than half the usual number of new grants, after a budget-office memo imposed new spending-plan requirements. | Deliberate delay in obligating appropriated funds is the same conduct GAO found unlawful under the Impoundment Control Act in its 2025 decisions; senators of both parties formally demanded NIH obligate all appropriated funds as required by law. | Research advocates warned the delays set up a de facto impoundment or a year-end pocket rescission. |