Spending transparency data posted by Trump budget office after court order

President Donald Trump’s administration is once again publishing information about how federal funding is distributed after a federal court ruled that the Office of Management and Budget is legally required to provide such data.

After their appeal was rejected, Trump officials had until Aug. 15 to post information on apportionments, which are OMB decisions that specify when appropriated agency funding becomes available. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the vice chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a press release on Monday that the data was starting to be put back up on the website. 

“It should never have required months in court for this administration to begin complying with a truly basic and straightforward transparency requirement,” Murray said in a statement. “OMB must now ensure every last bit of this important budget data that has been hidden is promptly made public, as the court has ordered, and that the data is posted within days, as the law requires, going forward.” 

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, one of the good government groups that brought the lawsuit to compel the republication, touted the website’s return in a fundraising email on Tuesday. 

“President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget tried to hide how it was allocating taxpayer money, but now thanks to our win in court last week, it brought back a funding database over the weekend—and with it, a key measure of public accountability,” CREW said. 

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During President Joe Biden’s administration, Congress required OMB to start publishing information on apportionments. Trump OMB Director Russell Vought in March, however, took down the website with such data. 

In a March 29 letter to Murray justifying his decision, Vought wrote that the requirement compelled “the disclosure of sensitive, predecisional and deliberative information” and that it “adversely impact[s] the candor contained in OMB’s communications with agencies and [has] undermined OMB’s effectiveness in supervising agency spending.” 

District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who was appointed by President Bill Clinton, in July ruled that OMB must republish the website, writing “there is nothing unconstitutional about Congress requiring the executive branch to inform the public of how it is apportioning the public’s money.” 

Then, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Aug. 9 denied the Trump administration’s request to pause the lower court ruling

“No president would allow a usurper to command our armed forces. And no Congress should be made to wait while the executive intrudes on its plenary power over appropriations and disclosure thereof,” wrote Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, who was appointed by President George H.W. Bush and was one of the judges on the appellate panel. 

Recent media reports have found that the Trump administration has used the apportionment process to pause and block funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and National Institutes of Health.