The Trump administration has ordered a review of federal funding despatched to more than a dozen Democratic-led states, based on a number of sources acquainted with the matter.
The sweeping scale of the review is printed in a finances knowledge request that was despatched Tuesday to all federal departments and businesses aside from the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs.
The Office of Management and Budget memo, which was reviewed by NCS, requests detailed spending knowledge as half of a review to “facilitate efforts to reduce the improper and fraudulent use of those funds.”
The request alerts a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s more and more aggressive technique to target federal funding in blue states – an unprecedented coverage method triggered throughout final 12 months’s authorities shutdown that has quickly accelerated in the wake of sweeping fraud allegations in Minnesota.
OMB Director Russel Vought has run level on the trouble after spending President Donald Trump’s previous 12 months in workplace re-engineering instruments utilized by the company, often known as the federal authorities’s “nerve center,” to exert new authority and energy over the federal spending course of.
The memo directs businesses to incorporate in their spending experiences all grants, loans, contracts, subcontracts and “other monetary awards” offered to 13 states and Washington, DC. All of the states voted for Democratic nominee and former Vice President Kamala Harris in the 2024 election and 12 of the 13 states have Democratic governors. A fourteenth Democratic-led state has since been included in the review, based on a particular person acquainted with the matter.
The request directs businesses to incorporate funding knowledge on the states in addition to their localities, establishments of increased training and nonprofit organizations working or performing award actions there.
The review is an growth of an ongoing effort to construct a full accounting of authorities spending in these states and can give the Trump administration choices for easy methods to handle what they see as waste or abuse, based on a number of sources with direct data of the matter.
That effort additionally consists of choices to counter blue-state insurance policies that go towards the administration’s priorities, most notably on funding associated to so-called “sanctuary cities,” the folks stated.
It additionally comes as Trump officers concentrate on the Minnesota welfare fraud scandal, and because the Justice Department works to create a new division of prosecutors and investigators centered on nationwide fraud enforcement. NCS has reported that the White House not too long ago pushed the FBI to analyze political campaigns in Minnesota over whether or not they illegally benefited from the fraud.
Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to go to the state later as we speak.
Federal businesses have till Monday to offer knowledge on California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington state and Washington, DC, the finances knowledge request reveals.
Virginia wasn’t listed in the unique memo, however has since been included in the review, based on a particular person acquainted with the matter.
They are being requested handy over knowledge on all grants, loans, cooperative agreements, contracts and different monetary awards together with these made to high schools and universities, the request states. Information ought to cowl fiscal years 2025 and 2026, in addition to projected spending for 2027, it says.
This is a growing story and will probably be up to date.