The Trump Administration Illegally Seizes New York City Funds

The Trump administration isn’t just “impounding” future spending mandated by Congress. They’re time-traveling to the past to seize money already transferred through the banking system, reversing an $80 million FEMA payment to New York City. NYC Comptroller Brad Lander calls it “highway robbery.”

The New York Times reports:

City leaders said on Wednesday that they noticed $80 million had suddenly gone missing from city bank accounts. Shortly after, the Department of Homeland Security, which houses FEMA, confirmed that the money had been taken back on Tuesday, a significant escalation of President Trump’s attempts to freeze or reverse funding that had previously been appropriated by Congress.

The clawback occurred one day after Elon Musk targeted the FEMA funds in a post on X. ...

City officials questioned the legality of the move, which appeared to be among the first known instances of the Trump administration seizing back congressionally appropriated funds from a locality.

This is an abuse of power on several levels. The administration is not merely defying the authority of Congress to mandate federal spending. By reversing payments already made through the Automated Clearing House banking system, it also violated the rules for automatic bank transfers.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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