A New York Times report this week cited a court filing in which federal officials said the Trump administration selected $7.5 billion in clean energy program cuts among states “based solely” on whether those states had voted for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election.

The filing, submitted about a month earlier in litigation brought by affected states, addressed the administration’s stated rationale that the cancellations were tied to “waste and fraud.” In the court answers, the government said the cancellations were not made for programmatic reasons. The administration also continued funding grants in states that supported Donald Trump in 2024, even when the Energy Department had recommended that those grants be canceled.

The disclosure has drawn attention because it appears to show that federal grant decisions were made on partisan grounds rather than on the policy, cost, performance or statutory criteria cited publicly by administration officials. Federal grants are typically governed by laws passed by Congress and by agency rules that define eligible uses, application standards and oversight requirements. That is why the stated basis for canceling or continuing awards can become central in lawsuits over whether an administration acted within its authority.

Critics said the admission raises broader questions about whether Trump is governing as president of the entire country or using federal spending to reward allies and punish political opponents.

As The Times reported, “The admission showed how Trump has weaponized the provision of federal education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure aid in his second term. Far from rooting out the sort of misspending that Trump sees as rife in Washington, the White House has instead sought to leverage the budget as a tool to assist its allies — or as a cudgel to hurt the president’s foes.”

The White House and Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, have not commented on the government’s court arguments in the lawsuit brought by the affected states. At the time of the cuts, Vought posted that “Nearly $8 billion in Green New Scam funding to fuel the Left’s climate agenda is being cancelled.”

In the court filing, however, a government lawyer said none of the cancellations were “based on any programmatic, statutory, cost-reduction or performance-based factor.”

The filing also contrasts with sworn congressional testimony from Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Speaking to House members in June, Wright said, “No decisions (about the cuts) were made on politics.” The administration had previously defended the cancellations as part of an effort to eliminate waste and fraud.

The dispute comes as Vought seeks to finalize rules that would give political appointees final authority over how the federal government awards more than $1 trillion in annual grants. Under the approach described in the Times report, Vought wants the power to block or revoke funding if states do not conform to administration priorities.

The outcome of the litigation and the proposed grant rules could affect more than the clean energy programs at issue in the current case, because federal grants support state and local projects across education, energy, health, housing and infrastructure. The legal fight therefore centers not only on the canceled awards, but also on how much discretion political appointees may exercise over funds that agencies administer under congressionally authorized programs.

The White House has also sought to impose additional restrictions on grant recipients, including limits on political activities and memberships, along with broadly worded conditions barring certain uses of federal money, including purposes deemed “anti-American,” The Times reported.

Historian Heather Cox Richardson argued on Substack that, rather than combating waste, Trump and his allies appear to be trying to take control of the United States government and use public power for their own ends.

Democratic lawmakers also criticized the grant cancellations. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, said politically driven grant cuts amounted to an “outright un-American” weaponization of government.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said the canceled grants included $583 million intended for Illinois, money he said “would have gone toward lowering energy costs, strengthening grid reliability, and creating energy jobs.” Pritzker called for the funding to be restored.

“Despite what he might think, Donald Trump is not the president of MAGA,” Pritzker said in a statement, but “the president of all America.”

Terry H. Schwadron, the author of the original Alternet article, retired as a senior editor at The New York Times and served as Deputy Managing Editor at The Los Angeles Times, with additional leadership roles at The Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin. He was part of a Pulitzer Gold Medal team in Los Angeles, and his team was part of several Pulitzer-winning efforts in New York.