Politicians demand restoration of funding tracker; Trump admin says it is national security risk

Lawfare against the White House found aid from the swamp as politicians demanded restoration of a website that the Trump administration argued posed a risk to national security.

From his acquisition of Twitter — rebranded X — to his endorsement and support of President Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign, Elon Musk has made himself an enemy of the establishment even before taking the lead at the Department of Government Efficiency.

But as DOGE sought to put a stop to government waste, fraud, and abuse, congressional appropriations committee leaders were challenging the legality of the Office of Management and Budget removing a public website detailing the apportionment of federal funds.

“It’s the law. It’s a requirement of the law, so it’s not discretionary on OMB’s part,” said Maine Sen. Susan Collins (R), chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to The Hill.

Oft an opponent of the president’s agenda, Collins sent a letter to OMB Director Russell Vought along with ranking member Washington Sen. Patty Murray (D) and their House counterparts, Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole (R) and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D), which was first reported by the New York Times.

Within the letter, the lawmakers called for the restoration of the website as they stated, “We look forward to working with you to restore public access to apportionment data in accordance with statute.”

Under the Consolidated Appropriations Acts of 2022 and 2023, which were passed under then-President Joe Biden, OMB was expected to publicly post apportionments to federal agencies. However, Vought had said of the website that OMB could “no longer operate and maintain this system because it requires the disclosure of sensitive, predecisional, and deliberative information,” thus posing a risk to national security.

Despite the contention from the director, who reportedly will be taking the reins of DOGE from Musk when the adviser wraps up his responsibilities, lawfare proceeded against the administration.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington brought one of the many suits against the federal government alongside the Protect Democracy Project, arguing OMB and Vought had violated the law by taking the information off the Internet

Lead counsel Wendy Liu of the Public Citizen Litigation Group said, “The Trump administration’s removal of information showing its apportionment of federal funds is blatantly illegal.”

“Taking down this information hides how the Trump administration is spending taxpayer dollars and harms the public’s ability to hold the administration accountable to the American people for its spending decisions,” she went on.

Meanwhile, Center for American Progress Senior Director of Federal Budget Policy Bobby Kogan, formerly a Senate budget aide, contended to The Hill, “The only reason we know how much money DOGE was getting and where it was housed within the federal government [is] because the White House was following the law at that point.”

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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