Judge orders Trump to restore funding to National Endowment for Democracy

A federal judge ordered the administration Monday to turn back on the pipeline of money to the National Endowment for Democracy, saying President Trump doesn’t have the power to override Congress’ spending decisions.

Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee to the court in Washington, said the White House had been slow-walking the organization’s money — and it needs to stop.

She said the administration gave insufficient reasons for why it has withheld as much as $95 million, or 30%, of the $315 million Congress allocated to the group.

“The defendants have likely unlawfully frozen the endowment’s funding,” she ruled.

The endowment is an independent nonprofit group that gets money from the government each year to dole out in the form of grants.

White House officials had argued that the endowment’s spending had gone off the rails in some cases and no longer aligned with “administration priorities.”

That’s similar to the claim the administration has made in blocking funding for all manner of government agencies.

But Judge Friedrich said that was a weak excuse compared to Congress’ explicit direction that the endowment be granted $315 million to “carry out its purposes.”

“The sudden and unprecedented withholding of $95 million — or roughly 30% — from its anticipated budget has forced the endowment to renege on commitments,” the judge ruled.

She said the president’s team likely ran afoul of both procedural law and the National Endowment for Democracy Act of 1983.

The endowment states that its grants protect human rights, combat corruption, and promote democratic institutions.

The withholding of funds that Congress directed to be spent is known as impoundment, and it has become a battlefield as the Trump administration pursues its agenda.

Not only has Mr. Trump’s team withheld money, but it nixed a website that Congress had ordered to provide transparency on how the administration was spending money.

A federal appeals court has now set a deadline of Friday for the government to restore the website.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee to the circuit court of appeals in Washington, said whether the legislature or executive controls spending has been fought since the days of British kings and Parliament and the American Revolution — and Congress came out on top.

That, she said, includes transparency over how the money was being spent.

She said if the president doesn’t like the transparency, he must get Congress to change the law.

The White House argued that the spending decisions were secret executive branch deliberations, and requiring their disclosure intruded on the president’s power.

“To hear the government tell it, the separation of powers hangs in the balance and only this Court can set things right. But when it comes to appropriations, our Constitution has made plain that congressional power is at its zenith,” the judge wrote.