The nonpartisan Government Accountability Office dropped a legal bomb on Monday, concluding what many in the trenches have known for months: the Federal Emergency Management Agency has violated federal law for the sixth time this year by withholding or delaying funds that Congress specifically appropriated to keep people from sleeping on the streets or starving in the shadows.
This isn’t just bureaucratic squabbling; it’s a calculated suffocation of aid programs that function as a last line of defense for the most vulnerable.
The GAO report methodically eviscerates President Donald Trump’s claim to lawful authority, finding that FEMA broke the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 by putting a stranglehold on the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) and the Shelter and Services Program (SSP) .
Let’s be clear about what we’re talking about here. The EFSP isn’t some abstract line item. It’s the money that supplements local soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
It’s the funding that keeps non-profits from turning away a mother and her children on a freezing night. The SSP, similarly, is designed to provide temporary housing to relieve the grotesque overcrowding in federal immigration facilities—a problem this administration never tires of lamenting but now stands accused of actively worsening.
The GAO’s finding is procedural, but its implications are visceral. The report states the obvious with cool, institutional restraint: “This process does not grant the President the authority to pass his own laws or to ignore or amend a law duly enacted by Congress.”
Yet, that is precisely what has happened. Instead of following the legal process to request Congress cancel spending, the administration simply decided to sit on the money, significantly delaying the first step for grants and, in the case of the SSP, not issuing a notice at all.
The arrogance of power is on full display. The GAO notes that the Department of Homeland Security, FEMA’s parent agency, didn’t even bother to respond to requests for information. They just stonewalled.
This is the behavior of an administration that believes it is answerable to no one, not even the watchdogs Congress has tasked with protecting its constitutional power of the purse.
And let’s not forget the ticking clock. The GAO dryly notes that “some of these appropriations are set to expire by the end of the fiscal year,” making it “crucial that the agency prudently obligates these funds prior to their expiration.”
In other words, if this funding isn’t released soon, it vanishes. Poof.
The money approved by Congress to feed and shelter people will simply cease to exist, lost to a political game of chicken.
The response from Capitol Hill was swift and sharp.
Senator Patty Murray (D-Wash.) called the report “another stark reminder of a fact we have known for months: President Trump is breaking the law in order to prevent communities across the country from receiving resources they have been promised.”
She nailed the central hypocrisy: “The same guy who says he wants to get people off the streets is blocking funding for communities to tackle homelessness.”
A dozen Democratic House members are calling on Trump to immediately fire Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting FEMA Administrator David Richardson, citing a damning Government Accountability Office (GAO) report finding FEMA violated federal law six times under the administration, which has not been in power for 250 days.
“The Government Accountability Office’s report is an indictment of both legal and moral failures at the highest levels of our government,” said anti-establishment progressive Democrat Lisa McCormick. “For the sixth time, a nonpartisan watchdog has caught the Trump administration breaking the law, this time by deliberately withholding funds that Congress designated to keep human beings from hunger and homelessness.”
This is the sixth time in 2025 the GAO has caught this administration violating the same law.
It’s a pattern, a habit, a deliberate strategy. They have been found to illegally impound money for everything from electric vehicle charging to medical research at the NIH. It seems no dollar is safe if it doesn’t align with the political whims of the moment.
So here we are. The law has been broken again. The watchdog has barked again.
And somewhere out there, a shelter director is looking at their emptying pantry, and a family is hoping for a bed, unaware that the help they were promised by law is being illegally withheld in a power play they’ll never understand.
The report is a victory for accountability, but on the ground, the situation remains a disgrace.
Discover more from NJTODAY.NET
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.