Trump plans $1 billion extreme White House makeover

Defiance.org: “You are paying for it. And he might be breaking the law in the process. “…According to confidential contracting documents reviewed by the Washington Post, the White House has stockpiled money for at least $927 million in construction on the grounds, the most expensive overhaul of the property in its history in raw dollars. And Trump didn’t ask Congress for it. To do it, analysis shows the Trump administration secretly raided funding from other agencies and accounts, including $415 million that was appropriated by Congress in part to recruit and train the Secret Service agents who take bullets for presidents. Instead, that money is being redirected to buy him a ballroom and pay for other renovations that haven’t been fully disclosed to the American people or Congress. The mechanics of how the White House is doing this are just as damning as the number. The administration apparently routed the funds through the “Executive Residence,” the small housekeeping office that employs the White House curators, calligraphers, and carpenters. Its maintenance account normally receives about $2.5 million a year from Congress. Since Trump took office, his aides have stuffed $875 million into it, including $500 million in transfers from the Secret Service and the White House Military Office, money donated from corporations and wealthy individuals connected to the president, and another $70 million from sources the documents don’t identify. Why launder the money through the housekeepers? I’ll tell you. Because that office is exempt from ordinary federal disclosure rules. The contracts are typically confidential. In theory, this is partly to protect the president and the White House complex against threat actors. But it’s definitely not so the commander-in-chief can put together unauthorized passion projects with taxpayer funds and avoid public criticism. That’s why last Friday, a federal appeals court ruled against part of Trump’s scheme, finding that the White House evaded accountability by trying to build the ballroom without congressional approval. Trump is appealing to the Supreme Court. I spent years working on the House Appropriations Committee, so let me explain the legal architecture that Donald Trump seems to be treating as a suggestion. The power of the purse belongs to Congress. It’s the first power the Constitution grants, in Article One, and it means the executive branch cannot take money lawmakers appropriated for one purpose and spend it on another, not without explicit approval. When Congress declined to fund Trump’s ballroom, that was basically their answer. They didn’t also say, “But you can take the money from other places!” The president evidently didn’t like his restrictions. By moving Secret Service training money into a redecorating account, he may be committing the same species of offense he was impeached for the first time. Remember when Trump defied Congress’s direction on funds for Ukraine — and dangled the money as a quid-pro-quo, with demands that Ukraine investigate his political rival, Joe Biden? That, of course, wasn’t an “authorized” purpose of those funds. It was a high crime, one for which he was then investigated and impeached. Trump clearly didn’t learn his lesson. He’s back at it again…”