It turns out that it may have been illegal for Biden to stop the flow of cash which funds the border wall and now he’s being investigated by the GAO:
POLITICO – On his first day in office, Biden hit pause on billions of dollars set to be spent on his predecessor’s long-touted barrier between the U.S. and Mexico while his administration figured out next steps for the money. Now the Government Accountability Office is launching a review to determine whether the new president broke the law by freezing the money in violation of budget rules designed to keep Congress in control of the cash flow, the federal watchdog confirmed this week.
An unfavorable ruling from GAO would bolster Republicans in branding Biden as a rule-breaker as they blame him for the surge of migrants and unaccompanied children at the southern border. The pause on spending “directly contributed” to that flood of border crossers, Senate Republicans said in their plea last week for GAO to opine on the issue. More than 70 House Republicans followed Tuesday in asking for a GAO opinion, which the watchdog typically provides whenever a member of Congress requests one.
Besides, Republicans say, Biden should know better after more than 30 years as a senator, as Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chair of the Senate Republican Policy Committee, put it.
“He was in the Congress a long time,” Blunt said in an interview. “He knows it’s the Congress’ job to authorize how the money is spent and the president’s job to spend it efficiently.”
The whole article, which is much longer than what I quoted, pretty much paints this potential violation of law as no big deal because even if the GAO rules against Biden, they say the GAO ruled against Trump in a similar situation last year.
My hope is not so much that Biden would be punished for it, but that a ruling would force him to resume wall construction. That’s really what needs to happen, but I didn’t see anything in the article that suggested that could be an outcome.
We’ll let you know in the future what becomes of this.