Republican lawmakers are growing increasingly frustrated with officials across President Donald Trump's administration who continue to withhold funds that Congress has already appropriated. Democrats have complained about the practice for some time, but Republicans are now joining the criticism and pressing for legal consequences.

Under the U.S. Constitution, the legislative branch — the House and Senate — allocates federal funding, passing budgets for the government, the military, Medicare, and the many other programs that keep the country operational. The Trump administration, however, has at times taken that money and, if officials dislike how it was allocated, simply declined to send it out.

Lawmakers are now asking the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to sue the administration for refusing to release approved spending and for canceling funding outright, Politico reported Friday.

The GAO — Congress's independent, nonpartisan auditing arm, charged with examining how federal dollars are spent on lawmakers' behalf — has repeatedly concluded that the administration violated federal law. This week, it found that the Trump administration illegally withheld more than $1 billion earmarked for education and health care research programs. The complication is that the GAO has no permanent director: an interim leader remains in charge until the Senate confirms a successor, and so far that interim director has not exercised the agency's authority to take the administration to court.

"They are empowered to sue," said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee and has been among the Republicans angered by the administration's moves.

"I think the biggest problem is that we have an acting director of the GAO, who understandably is wary of suing the administration without direct congressional approval," Collins added.

With the Nov. 3 election just 25 days away and the House expected to change hands, lawmakers could sue the administration for violating the law. There is precedent on both sides: the Republican-led House sued President Barack Obama's administration in July 2014 over Obamacare spending, and in September 2020 the Democratic-led House sued the Trump administration over border wall funding Congress never appropriated. Whether Congress supplies the direct approval Collins described, or members file their own case as their predecessors have, is one of the open questions heading into Election Day.

Trump has also recently canceled $810 million in approved spending. The fiscal year ended Sept. 30, meaning any program funds left unused have now expired. Separately, the president faces questions over his use of government funding to run television ads promoting himself, and over the $352 million he took from the Secret Service budget to build his ballroom.

Politico cited a recent report from The Washington Sun, which said Thursday that Trump officials were considering nominating Eric Ueland, who currently serves in the White House budget office. The Senate would have to confirm any nominee before a permanent director takes over — the official who would face the decision of whether to take the administration to court. At the Office of Management and Budget, Director Russ Vought is the official who, under Trump's authority, "has used every lever he can reach to stanch the flow of federal dollars," as one columnist wrote.

A series of August reports highlighted what are being called "zombie programs" across the U.S. government — initiatives such as the CDC's Alzheimer's program, epilepsy and sickle cell disease data collection operations, and even a rape prevention unit. Congress approved and fully funded all of them, but when Elon Musk carried out his DOGE cuts, the staff who worked on the programs were let go — leaving the initiatives funded on paper but with no personnel to run them.

Vought has encouraged the president to impound money Congress has allocated, even though doing so is against the law. Indeed, Brown cited "a law specifically forbidding the practice." That statute, the Impoundment Control Act of 1974, was enacted after President Richard Nixon's refusals to spend money Congress had approved, and it sets out the process a president must follow to ask Congress to rescind funds. Republicans allege that Trump is employing "pocket rescissions" tactics — proposing cuts so late in the fiscal year that the funds expire at year's end without a congressional vote.

"I'm very disappointed in their action here, and it will have to be rectified," said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.). "I'm not sure who should do it. All I know is I want a different result than what we have right now."

Gene Dodaro, who left the Comptroller General's post at the end of his 15-year term, said "the law is very clear that GAO's ability to sue doesn't preclude anybody else from suing."