The Trump Administration Is Engaging in Increasingly Blatant Efforts to Misuse Federal Funds to Coerce and Punish

The Trump Administration’s extraordinary and politically motivated demand for information on nearly all federal funding going to 14 states and Washington, D.C. — all of which voted against the President in the 2024 election — continues a disturbing trend. Since the start of this year, actions by the Administration have made clear that it intends to accelerate its already unprecedented and illegal efforts to punish residents of states President Trump considers political enemies or who disagree with the President, particularly on immigration enforcement.

In early January, the Administration attempted to illegally freeze billions of dollars that Congress had provided to support low-income families’ child care and other essential needs in five states led by Democratic governors. While alluding to vague, unsubstantiated concerns about fraud, the Administration provided no evidence to justify its actions, and a district court quickly blocked the effort, at least temporarily.

This continues — and accelerates — a dangerous pattern from the first year of the Trump Administration, in which it illegally sought to withhold funds to coerce or punish perceived political opponents. For example, during the government shutdown, the Administration targeted blue states with funding freezes and cuts. The Administration was clear about its intent: in a January court ruling finding that the Trump Administration had illegally cancelled more than $7 billion in support for clean energy projects, the judge noted that federal officials “freely admit that they made grant-termination decisions primarily — if not exclusively — based on whether the awardee resided in a state whose citizens voted for President Trump in 2024.”

And recent reporting has documented how the Trump Administration embarked on a politically motivated set of attacks on major universities. Political officials directed career Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyers to open investigations into specific universities without first conducting factfinding to determine if there were violations of federal law. As one DOJ attorney who was involved in the investigations and subsequently resigned noted, “We were only told to investigate cases that were in blue states, and cases or investigations involving red states or that didn’t involve perceived political enemies of the administration never moved forward.”

The Administration is poised to expand its unlawful weaponization of federal funding to even more states. The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recently launched a government-wide effort to identify nearly all federal spending provided to governments, institutions of higher education, and nonprofits in 14 states and the District of Columbia that all voted against President Trump in the 2024 election. (With the exception of Vermont, all of these jurisdictions are led by a Democrat.) The OMB memorandum provides no rationale for why funding to only these states would be targeted, nor does it make clear why the data gathering is needed. But in stating that it “does not involve withholding funds, and therefore does not violate any court order,” it implicitly acknowledges the obvious: the intent is to facilitate exactly such withholdings — perhaps across an even greater scale of programs and recipients — even though many such efforts have already been found to be illegal. For example, in the short-term, this effort could facilitate President Trump’s stated plan to punish states with jurisdictions that choose not to enter into his preferred arrangement for how local law enforcement agencies engage with federal immigration agencies — arrangements that many jurisdictions view as hindering public safety.

The Administration’s recent actions pose significant risks to families and communities across the country, to economic growth, and to the rule of law. Given the Administration’s willingness to freeze, cancel, or withhold funding with little notice or justification, based on scant or no evidence, and seemingly little regard for the human impact of their actions, all federal funding in all states must be considered under continual threat of being frozen, terminated, or withheld where the Administration sees an opportunity for coercion or some kind of political benefit. Even if it only remains a threat, this uncertainty is corrosive, making it hard for businesses to invest and grow, for states and localities to undertake long-term projects, and for families to trust that federally supported programs and services will be there when they need them.

By destroying the trust and reliability built up over decades, the Administration’s actions poison the long-standing, productive, and necessary partnership with states, local governments, and nonprofits to provide critical services that people in every state depend on. Federal tax dollars are used to fix roads and bridges, respond to disease outbreaks and other public health threats, fund public schools, help lower the costs of essentials for families, drive foundational research that leads to medical cures and scientific breakthroughs, support entrepreneurs and small businesses, invest in safe water and clean air, and much more.

Finally, this blatant weaponization of federal funding invites corruption, as the distribution and continued availability of billions of federal dollars is tied to the whims of political appointees. This type of widespread corruption leads to inefficiencies, slower economic growth, and the erosion of the rule of law — it allows the Administration to coerce states, localities, and civil society to accede to its demands regardless of the legality or propriety.