Weekly Spotlight: A Big Deadline Looms

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EXECUTIVE POWER GRAB

A definitive deadline looms 

Last week, the Trump administration authorized military control of the Roosevelt Reservation, a stretch of border land that spans across California, Arizona, and New Mexico. The executive order comes on the precipice of a big deadline: Sunday, April 20 marks the end of a 90-day review period, at which point the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security will advise the White House on whether to invoke the Insurrection Act, an emergency power that would allow them to deploy troops trained for war to act as police officers.  

• The Insurrection Act opens the door for a president to abuse the military to surveil the public, enforce unjust laws, and quash dissent. It is a danger to democracy.
• FACT SHEET Reforming the Insurrection Act: Federal law prohibits the military from policing the American public for good reason. POGO has long urged Congress to close the loophole created by the Insurrection Act — our fact sheet explains how. 

 CHECKS AND BALANCES

Court orders aren’t optional, President Trump 

President Trump assured the public that he would bring someone who was deported back if the Supreme Court ordered it. But rather than working to bring a man they mistakenly deported without due process home, the administration has begun to claim that it meant to deport Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia all along. This effort to double down on their mistake is egregious. The White House must follow the Supreme Court’s order and facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return — and Congress and the courts must hold them to it. If the government can get away with illegally disappearing a person without a criminal record into a foreign prison in blatant defiance of a court order, none of us are safe. 

• “Homegrowns are next”: President Trump has again hinted that he will imprison American citizens in foreign prisons. It would be an unprecedented and profound violation of constitutional rights.
• A judge is threatening to hold the Trump administration in criminal contempt over the March 15 deportation flights. Another judge, who ruled on Abrego Garcia’s case, is considering a contempt of court charge as well.
• What happens then? “Criminal contempt of court is most often prosecuted by the Justice Department, which creates obvious conflicts in this case,” Katherine Hawkins explained to Courthouse News Service. 

FOLLOW THE MONEY

What does the government do with your taxes? They don’t want you to know. 

Tax Day has come and gone. Millions of Americans have paid their part, but the government is failing part of their end of the bargain: Informing you of what they do with your tax dollars. This isn’t just a matter of bad accounting. By shutting down a crucial (and legally mandated) online database that informed the public about how the executive branch is spending its funds, the White House is actively denying you the transparency it owes you.  

• The public and Congress need access to this data to hold the executive branch accountable. We’re pushing to get this database back online.
• ANALYSIS A New System Won’t Boost Transparency — Fix USASpending.gov: POGO’s Janice Luong breaks down the commonsense steps the government can take to fix how it tracks spending. A better system is within reach.

 Cutting waste at the Pentagon 

President Trump issued an executive order directing the Pentagon to recommend for cancellation programs that are 15% behind schedule, 15% over budget, or failing key requirements. This could and would be a great thing, if the overwhelmingly obvious offenders — like the F-35, $1.7 trillion over budget and over a decade behind schedule — are finally given the axe. But it remains to be seen if they will actually cut these contracts, or how they will be held accountable if they fail. 

• If followed, this directive would improve upon what the Nunn-McCurdy Act has long tried to accomplish. Congress must give the act some teeth so they can hold the Pentagon to making these cuts.
• The administration has made a lot of noise about cutting waste. There are meaningful reforms they could make if they were seriously trying to address the issue.
• At least 37 members of Congress hold stocks in the contractors that make weapons for the Pentagon. Some of these members go on to make decisions about acquisition and contracts. “It’s an ethical kind of cancer on the institution of Congress that they continue to engage in stock trading,” POGO’s Dylan Hedtler-Gaudette told The Hill.