House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Harris introduced a bill Friday placing limits on a congressional agency’s ability to block President Donald Trump’s spending decisions.
The bill would require the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the legislative branch’s “watchdog” agency, to secure congressional approval before filing a civil lawsuit against the Trump administration. There are nearly 40 open GAO inquiries into Trump administration funding freezes, agency head Gene Dodaro said in April.
“President Trump was elected to disrupt the status quo and return power to the American people,” Harris said in a statement. “This bill protects President Trump from GAO overreach and ensures that the agency cannot be weaponized by the political establishment to obstruct President Trump’s agenda or to drag out baseless legal challenges designed to grind the Executive Branch to a halt.”
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Rep. Andy Harris Bill by Katelynn Richardson
“We are aware of the proposed legislation and are reviewing the potential impact on GAO’s work,” GAO spokeswoman Sarah Kaczmarek told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The GAO has already found the Trump administration in violation of the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, which dictates when the president can cancel or withhold funds appropriated by Congress, twice in the past two months.
In June, it held the administration violated federal law when the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) withheld grants and other appropriated funds. Most of the agency’s staff was placed on administrative leave in March, according to CBS News.
The GAO found in May that the administration violated federal law by withholding money for a Biden-era electric vehicle (EV) charging program. With $7.5 billion at its disposal to install thousands of EV chargers nationwide, the Biden administration’s effort resulted in only seven operational stations in two years, the Washington Post reported in March 2024.
White House Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought suggested in response that GAO rulings are “non-events with no consequence.”
“Just so we are all clear over the next several months. The Government Accountability Office or GAO is a quasi-independent arm of the legislative branch that played a partisan role in the first-term impeachment hoax,” he wrote on X. “They are going to call everything an impoundment because they want to grind our work to manage taxpayer dollars effectively to a halt. These are non-events with no consequence. Rearview mirror stuff.”
Just weeks after House Democrats voted to impeach Trump, the GAO found in 2020 that the Trump administration violated federal law by withholding $214 million in aid to Ukraine in the summer of 2019.
The agency’s opposition to the Trump administration hasn’t gone unnoticed among Republicans, with Utah Sen. Mike Lee writing in May that the GAO has “lost credibility as an independent body.”
Bill co-sponsors include Republican Reps. Mary Miller of Illinois, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Paul Gosar of Arizona, Brandon Gill of Texas and Clay Higgins of Louisiana.
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Author: Katelynn Richardson
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