WASHINGTON — Donald Trump unleashed a flurry of sweeping executive orders, proclamations and regulatory freezes during his first week in office aimed at reshaping the federal government and enacting his MAGA agenda.
And one thing the president isn’t letting get in the way of his mission: federal laws passed by Congress.
Over the weekend, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general, whose job is to root out corruption in government agencies, without notifying Congress in advance as required by statute, a move critics denounced as a “chilling purge” that signals the president intends to replace them with his loyalists instead.
Several of Trump’s directives ordered government agencies to “pause” or withhold funds appropriated by Congress — including key climate investments, money for infrastructure projects and nearly all U.S. assistance to foreign nations — challenging the constitutional role of Congress and its power of the purse.
Moreover, Trump’s decision not to enforce a federal ban on the social media app TikTok and his administration eliminating a school safety board that was created in the wake of the Parkland shooting massacre added to the list of actions that appeared to flout acts of Congress.
“I think that Trump has issued many executive orders that are clearly illegal,” Erwin Chemerinsky, a constitutional law scholar and the dean of UC Berkeley’s School of Law, told HuffPost. “Some of it is political, some of it is to test the bounds of the law. He really wants to push executive power further than it’s ever been before.”
‘Technically’ Violating The Law
Republicans who complained about executive overreach under Joe Biden’s administration praised Trump’s early administrative moves, even though some now acknowledge the president is acting outside the bounds of federal law.
Asked Sunday if Trump violated the statute by not giving notice before firing the inspectors general across nearly all government agencies, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said, “No, he didn’t,” before retracting.
“No, well, technically, yeah. But he has the authority to do it,” Graham said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “So I’m not, you know, losing a whole lot of sleep that he wants to change the personnel out. I just want to make sure that he gets off to a good start. I think he has.”
Inspectors general are tasked with providing independent audits, inspections and investigations of government agencies. After Trump fired five inspectors general at the end of his first presidential term, Congress passed a law that increased the removal protections for the post, including requiring a 30-day notification as to the specific reasons for their removal action.
Mark Greenblatt, inspector general at the U.S. Department of the Interior, said he received a two-sentence email on Friday evening informing him that he was terminated from his position.
“These removals should be setting off alarm bells for a number of different reasons, but the primary one, in my view, is the independence of these positions,” Greenblatt told CNN on Monday. “The whole construct of inspectors general, it’s based on us being independent, that we’re not beholden to a political party … and so that’s the question is, what will — what will President Trump do with these positions?”
‘Illegal’ Spending Freeze
Trump’s executive orders pausing the disbursement of funds appropriated by Congress drew criticism from ethics watchdogs and Democratic lawmakers who warned that Trump is violating the Impoundment Control Act, which sets limits on how much a president can restrict money approved by Congress.
In addition to pausing nearly all U.S. foreign aid, Trump’s orders stopped money flowing to some programs established by Biden’s climate and health care law and his bipartisan infrastructure law.
“Congress may give the president discretion regarding how to implement the programs for which it appropriates money. But in general, the executive branch does not have discretion whether to implement such programs,” the government watchdog group CREW wrote in a letter to congressional leaders on Monday. “Put simply, it is illegal and contrary to our constitutional structure for the president to disobey appropriations acts duly enacted after Congress publicly considers and determines funding levels for the federal government.”
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, also criticized Trump’s spending freezes. The senator noted that both Trump and Russ Vought, his nominee to serve as director of the Office of Management and Budget, view the Impoundment Control Act as unconstitutional despite there being no court decision finding it so.
“It doesn’t matter how presidents feel about the law — it matters what the law is,” Murray said.
“If Trump goes ahead and holds up funding that has been signed into law, it won’t just be illegal — it will hurt families, halt projects to rebuild America’s roads and bridges, kill good-paying new jobs and so much more,” she added.
TikTok Running On Borrowed Time
Trump’s executive order telling the Department of Justice not to enforce a federal ban on TikTok gave the popular social media app and its millions of users a reprieve — but it’s one that Congress never intended.
The law, which passed last April, allowed the president to delay the Jan. 19 ban on TikTok for 90 days if he certified that there had been significant progress made toward a sale of the app. That’s yet to happen, and Trump has denied a report that the White House is working on a deal with Oracle and a group of other outside investors to secure TikTok’s presence in the U.S.
“Numerous people are talking to me, very substantial people, about buying it, and I’d make that decision probably over the next 30 days,” Trump said of TikTok’s future over the weekend.
But lawmakers in both parties said they don’t mind giving TikTok added time if it means its ties to China’s government are severed.
“My understanding of where we are now is it’s much the same thing where there’s a period of time to allow a deal to be consummated,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) told HuffPost last week. “The objective is to force China to sell the damn thing. If that’s where we end up, I’m happy.”
School Safety Board Axed
Trump’s administration also terminated an office last week whose purpose was to advise federal agencies on best practices to protect students. It was created under Trump’s first term after the Parkland school shooting massacre and codified into law by the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, which extended background checks for firearm purchasers under the age of 21 and boosted mental health programs.
The panel included “school safety experts, alongside the parents of children who died in school shootings, advocates for civil rights and disability rights, superintendents, and leaders of organizations that represent school and district administrators,” according to Education Week.
The Department of Homeland Security, under which the advisory panel was housed, told the outlet it would “no longer tolerate any advisory committee which push agendas that attempt to undermine its national security mission.”
“The bipartisan law, as you know, took assault weapons out of the hands of younger people and was the first major advance in gun safety since the Brady Law,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Sunday, referring to the federal law that required background checks on gun purchases. “I was the author of the Brady Law as well … this entire board, which is working hard to stop more Parklands from happening, has been shut down.”
Legal experts said that every president issues executive orders testing the limits of their authority, but whether they will stick is far from guaranteed.
“The ultimate question is will Congress find that these exercises of authority require any oversight? My assumption so far is, likely no,” said Aram Gavoor, an associate dean for academic affairs at George Washington University Law School. “I think it’s a bit of a wait-and-see. The president does appear to be exercising his authorities to deliver on campaign promises. Of course, litigation is already forthcoming, but many of these big questions would only be conclusively answered before the Supreme Court.”
Arthur Delaney contributed reporting.
