WASHINGTON (AP) — The federal government's watchdog agency said Thursday a White House office violated federal law in withholding security assistance to Ukraine.
The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the Office of Management and Budget violated the law in holding up the aid. The freeze is at the center of the impeachment of President Donald Trump.
The independent agency, which reports to Congress, said OMB violated the Impoundment Control Act in delaying the security assistance Congress authorized for Ukraine for “policy reasons,” rather than technical budgetary needs.
“Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law,” wrote the agency's general counsel, Thomas Armstrong, in the report.
OMB has argued the hold was appropriate and necessary.
“We disagree with GAO's opinion. OMB uses its apportionment authority to ensure taxpayer dollars are properly spent consistent with the President's priorities and with the law," said OMB spokeswoman Rachel Semmel.
Trump was impeached last month on charges of abusing his power for pressuring Ukraine to investigate Democratic rivals, as he was withholding the aid, and for obstructing Congress' ensuing probe. The Senate is set to begin its trial on Thursday.
The S&P 500 climbed 0.4% after wavering between small gains and losses in the early going.
An autopsy commissioned for George Floyd’s family found that Floyd died of asphyxiation due to neck and back compression when a Minneapolis police officer kneeled on his neck for several minutes and ignored his cries of distress, the Floyd family’s attorneys said Monday.
Facebook employees are using Twitter to register their frustration over CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to leave up posts by President Donald Trump that suggested protesters in Minneapolis could be shot.
Federal health authorities have received reports of nearly 26,000 nursing home residents dying from COVID-19, according to materials prepared for the nation's governors. That number is partial and likely to go higher.
Leslie Ricard Chambers, deputy executive counsel for Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, talked to Cheddar Monday morning, as cities across the country woke up after another night of unrest.
President Donald Trump is deriding the nation’s governors as “weak” and demanding tougher crackdowns on protesters in the aftermath of more violent protests in dozens of American cities.
President Donald Trump spent time in a White House bunker during Friday night's protests outside the executive mansion. Secret Service agents rushed him there as some of the demonstrators were throwing rocks and tugging at police barricades.
America’s cities boarded up windows, swept up glass and covered graffiti Sunday as the country's most significant night of protests in a half-century spilled into another day of unrest fueled by killings of black people at the hands of police.
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Minnesota authorities say the police officer who knelt on George Floyd has been arrested
