Trump Hits Up a Rich Crony to Illegally Pay Troops During the Shutdown and Diss Congress

Oct 24, 2025

Rather than negotiating with Congress over continued government funding, Donald Trump is trying to run the government entirely without the authorization of Congress. One way he is doing this is taking money from an anonymous private donor (later identified as banking heir Timothy Mellon) to meet payroll for the U.S. military.

CNN reports:

The Trump administration plans to funnel a $130 million donation from an anonymous ally of President Donald Trump toward paying military service members during the government shutdown, the Defense Department confirmed on Friday. …
The $130 million donation is unlikely to make any meaningful impact toward covering salaries of the roughly 1.3 million active duty military troops, netting out to about $100 per service member. …
Democrats also raised concerns about its legality, contending that the gift acceptance authority cited by the Pentagon only permits gifts for a handful of specific purposes—such as funding military schools, hospitals, cemeteries or to benefit wounded troops or the dependents of those injured or killed in the line of duty. Donations can also face additional, tighter restrictions if they come from foreign governments or organizations. …
Budget experts also questioned whether using the donation to pay military members runs afoul of the Antideficiency Act, which forbids federal agencies from using federal funds that exceed what have been allocated to them. Democrats have accused the administration of violating that law multiple times during the shutdown, including in its decision to fire thousands of federal workers.
“The Antideficiency Act is explicit that private donations cannot be used to offset a lapse in appropriations,” said Bill Hoagland, a former Senate GOP budget aide who is currently a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

This isn’t about money, it’s about control. In a free society, the men with guns are paid by the people, and the people are represented by Congress. This ensures that the men with guns work for the people and answer to Congress. In a dictatorship, the men with guns are the private mercenaries of the leader and his cronies.

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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