The Trump administration was sued after a website designed to show the public how federal funding is disbursed to government agencies "went dark, without explanation."
Filed on Monday in federal court in the District of Columbia, the new lawsuit accuses the administration of violating federal law when it took down the tracking website last month. The online database is run by the Office of Management and Budget.
"Congress mandated prompt transparency for apportionments to prevent abuses of power and strengthen Congress' and the public's oversight of the spending process," the complaint reads. "Absent this transparency, the president and OMB may abuse their authority over the apportionment of federal funds without public or congressional scrutiny or accountability."
Under Biden-era legislation, the OMB is required to make public "apportionments" of funding that have been approved by Congress. Federal law mandates that agencies spend the funding allocated by Congress in installments that are determined by the president, who, the suit states, "has delegated his apportionment authority to the OMB director."
Protect Democracy Project brought the suit, naming OMB and OMB Director Russell Vought as defendants.
The group argues that the apportionment disclosures are "the only public source of information on how DOGE (President Trump's Department of Government Efficiency) is being funded — information that Congress and journalists have used in reporting and oversight."
According to The Hill, the legal action comes as Democrats have been raising objections to the website's removal, accusing the Trump administration in recent weeks of improperly concealing how agencies have been directed to spend the earmarked funding.
Writing to House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., last month, Vought said the OMB "has determined that it can no longer operate and maintain this system because it requires the disclosure of sensitive, predecisional, and deliberative information."
"By their nature, apportionments and footnotes contain predecisional and deliberative information because they are interim decisions based on current circumstances and needs, and may be (and are) frequently changed as those circumstances change," the letter said.
Vought's letter was marked up in red text with ostensible corrections and shared online by DeLauro, who wrote that she "fixed it."
The Government Accountability Office also responded to Vought's claims in its own letter to the OMB director last week, which Democrats told The Hill is confirmation that the administration's takedown of the site is illegal.
"We understand that OMB took down the website taking the position that it requires the disclosure of predecisional and deliberative information," the GAO's letter read. "We disagree."
The congressional watchdog countered that "apportionments are legally binding decisions on agencies under the Antideficiency Act" and said "such information, by definition, cannot be predecisional or deliberative."
"OMB also noted that apportionments may contain sensitive information which, if disclosed publicly automatically, may pose a danger to national security and foreign policy," the GAO continued. "While there may be some information that is sensitive if disclosed publicly, it is certainly not the case that all apportionment data meets that standard."
Nicole Weatherholtz ✉
Nicole Weatherholtz, a Newsmax general assignment reporter covers news, politics, and culture. She is a National Newspaper Association award-winning journalist.
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