Trump is literally breaking the law but no one really cares to discuss that anymore since the gish gallop has be so quick this term.
If Congress wants to fund something specific, they need to pass a law or budget that names that specific thing and how much they are appropriating. They aren't doing that.
So, Trump taking money from Harvard and giving it to say, a community college in Tampa is technically still correct implementation of the law. I mean, it all depends if he can defend his decision in court, because of course he cannot discriminate based on race, ethnicity, political affiliation etc.
If someone has more knowledge to contribute, that'd be most welcome.
I do not imagine it is congruent with the law to simply fire all the staff and shut down USAID (or "merge" it into State).
The laws are all public and people are free to read that a few weeks ago, Congress directed the Executive to spend money as USAID for the statutory purposes behind USAID. That part is pretty clear.
With NSF grants, the question is whether the President can redistribute funding away from applicants affiliated with specific institutions he doesn’t like (my first approximation: probably).
With USAID, the question is whether the President has the authority to disband an entire Agency established and appropriated by Congress (22 U.S.C. 6563) (my first approximation: probably not).
With science funding grants, the administration likely has latitude to make some changes, but the specifics of that latitude are going to be embedded in a thicket of overlapping statutes of different vintages.
Without going through all the specific statutes, I relied on the suggestion that if they are okay breaking the law around USAID funding passed in March, they likely are not going to find religion and adhere to laws governing science funding. But I guess anything's possible.
The Fourth Circuit allowed the administration to proceed: https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/28/appeals-court-usaid...
That is not a final word on the constitutionality of dissolving USAID, but it's an indication that the Court didn't believe plaintiffs had a high likelihood of success on the merits to justify the preliminary injunction.
Why do you assume that the person you're responding to is "jumping to conclusions." Feels like you're just ignoring what they have to say in the guise of "asking for more knowledge" when you don't actually know if they don't have the knowledge because of your own lack of expertise.
https://history.house.gov/Institution/Origins-Development/Po...
Because they said “Trump is literally breaking the law.” That hasn’t been established yet.
I happen to be an attorney as well as a hacker, and I worked in a Federal district court, so perhaps give me the benefit of the doubt that I just might know what I’m talking about. If you have legitimate questions of your own, I’d be happy to try to answer them.
