A federal judge on Monday ruled against the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and said that it violated federal law by removing a public funding tracker website.
In a 60-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan wrote that a public database run by OMB should be reinstated and that a directive ordering its removal violated the law because Congress passed legislation mandating that OMB make decisions available to the public within two business days.
In Monday’s order, Sullivan said he agreed with some of the group’s arguments and said that “the law is clear” in that “Congress has sweeping authority to require public disclosure of how the Executive Branch is apportioning the funds appropriated by Congress.”
“Under the law, the decision of the Executive Branch must be made public within two days of the decision. And if Defendants need to make a new decision, that new decision must also be made public within two days. Plaintiffs in this lawsuit monitor these decisions, and they have the right to report on and re-publish this information,” he said.
Lawyers for the White House had argued that the plaintiffs who filed the complaint haven’t been able to identify any injury they’ve suffered after the website was taken down.
“Protect Democracy has failed to establish a concrete and particularized injury stemming from OMB’s non-disclosure of apportionment documents,” the Trump administration said in a June filing, adding that the group lacks standing, a legal doctrine that provides rights to bring a lawsuit in court.
At the same time, the White House argued, OMB would suffer harm because it would be forced to reveal “deliberative information pursuant to unconstitutional statutory provisions that constitute Congressional intrusion into Executive functions” and that any final orders should mandate that OMB should not “divulge privileged information pending appellate resolution of an important constitutional issue.”
The Trump administration has faced some pressure from Democrats and at least one Republican senator to restore the OMB database.
Democrats, who criticized the decision to remove the database, said in a statement in March that the website take-down violated federal law because “Congress enacted these requirements over a Democratic President’s objections on a bipartisan basis because our constituents, and all American taxpayers, deserve transparency and accountability for how their money is being spent.”
The Epoch Times contacted a White House spokesperson for comment on Monday.