U.S. District Judge Jeannette Vargas of the Southern District of New York on Feb. 11 clarified that the U.S. Treasury including Secretary Scott Bessent is allowed to access his own department’s payment systems after a prior ruling had blocked access to anyone but “civil servants”.
Vargas clarified the scope of the ruling, saying it did not apply to Treasury leadership, stating, “the Court grants the motion to modify the February 8 TRO to clarify that the Secretary of the Treasury and other Senate-confirmed senior Treasury Officers are not prohibited from accessing Treasury’s payment systems.”
But it still sought to block President Donald Trump and the White House from conducting oversight of the Treasury and other departments and agencies via the White House Department of Government Efficiency, blocking President Trump “from granting access to any Treasury Department payment record, payment systems, or any other data systems maintained by the Treasury Department…” to any political appointees except for the Treasury Secretary and his Senate-confirmed deputies.
There’s clearly good reason to conduct an audit of federal spending by the executive branch, particularly to root out fraud, which could total hundreds of billions of dollars a year, one government watchdog agency found.
In 2024, the Government Accountability Office reported an “estimated total direct annual financial losses to the government from fraud to be between $233 billion and $521 billion, based on data from fiscal years 2018 through 2022.” The report was sent to Congress and offered a variety of recommendations including that “the Department of the Treasury to expand government-wide fraud estimation, in consultation with [the White House Office of Management and Budget] OMB…”
The court’s ruling still limiting access comes even as the Secretary of Treasury — who serves at the pleasure of the President — has all the authority he needs to root out such fraud, including receiving and keeping public money, taking and giving receipts of monies paid out and deposited in the Treasury and so forth under 31 U.S. Code Sec. 3301: “The Secretary of the Treasury shall… receive and keep public money… take receipts for money paid out by the Secretary… give receipts for money deposited in the Treasury… endorse warrants for receipts for money deposited in the Treasury… submit the accounts of the Secretary to the Comptroller General every 3 months, or more often if required by the Comptroller General; and … submit to inspection at any time by the Comptroller General of money in the possession of the Secretary.”
Moreover, the Secretary, and whomever he delegates the authority to, is responsible for disbursing monies under 31 U.S.C. Sec. 3121: “only officers and employees of the Department of the Treasury designated by the Secretary of the Treasury as disbursing officials may disburse public money available for expenditure by an executive agency…”
The Secretary of Treasury, via the disbursing officials he designates, is required to access the Treasury payment systems under 31 U.S.C. Sec. 3325: “A disbursing official in the executive branch of the United States Government shall… disburse money only as provided by a voucher certified by… the head of the executive agency concerned; or … an officer or employee of the executive agency having written authorization from the head of the agency to certify vouchers; … [and] examine a voucher if necessary to decide if it is… in proper form; … certified and approved; and … computed correctly on the facts certified…”
And critically, the Secretary can delegate the disbursing authority to other agencies as necessary: “For economy and efficiency, the Secretary may delegate the authority to disburse public money to officers and employees of other executive agencies.”
Meaning, Secretary Bessent can delegate access to the payments systems as needed on a per agency basis. The audit is going to happen one way or another.
In addition, in 2014, Congress enacted the Digital Accountability and Transparency (DATA) Act that among other things requires that federal spending be posted on a publicly accessible website, USASpending.gov. The purposes of the law were “disclosing direct Federal agency expenditures and linking Federal contract, loan, and grant spending information to programs of Federal agencies to enable taxpayers and policy makers to track Federal spending more effectively” and to “establish Government-wide data standards for financial data and provide consistent, reliable, and searchable Government-wide spending data that is displayed accurately for taxpayers and policy makers on USASpending.gov (or a successor system that displays the data)…”
It requires the Secretary of Treasury to “ensure that the information in subsection (b) is posted on the website…” including “any funds made available to or expended by a Federal agency or component of a Federal agency… for each appropriations account, including an expired or unexpired appropriations account, the amount— of budget authority appropriated… that is obligated… of unobligated balances; and … of any other budgetary resources…”
And it requires the Secretary of Treasury post “from which accounts and in what amount— …. appropriations are obligated for each program activity; and … outlays are made for each program activity…”
And it requires to be posted “from which accounts and in what amount— … appropriations are obligated for each object class; and … outlays are made for each object class; and … for each program activity, the amount— … obligated for each object class; and … of outlays made for each object class.”
Under the DATA Act, pretty much the entire budget is mandated to be available to the public and to Congress to ensure accountability to taxpayers. And the Secretary of Treasury, via his statutory authority to access the Treasury payments systems to ensure that all payments are properly made, can also publish that data. In fact, he has to.
But the data clearly is not fully available to Congress and the American people, as DOGE is revealing. Besides that, USASpending.gov is slow to function and unless you know what you’re looking for, can be a little difficult to navigate. It’s likely due for an upgrade, and DOGE — spun off from the 2014-created White House U.S. Digital Service — is likely the political office most suited to perform the upgrade.
So, President Trump should just publish everything. The entire budget. Line by line, simply by directing the Secretary of Treasury to work with the White House U.S. DOGE Service to perform the upgrade of USASpending.gov—which will expose all of the waste, fraud and abuse in the system.
And, if there is still a dispute about what fiscal data and other government information may be accessed, Trump can just determine that the fiscal data being broadly accessible by the executive branch is vital to national security. Why?
In 2010, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen warned that the debt is an absolute danger to national security, stating, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt.” He’s right.
Growing at more than 8 percent a year since 1980, the $36 trillion national debt could more than double over the next decade and surpass $100 trillion by 2037 and beyond as the government trust funds dry up.
So, Trump can just take ownership of all of the government’s fiscal data, including that in the Treasury’s payment systems, by classifying that information as vital to national security, and then immediately declassifying it on as-needed basis to the departments and agencies to address significant matters of concern, and publicly all information deemed vital to the national interest.
And there’s nothing the courts could really do than otherwise act as a speed bump. As the Supreme Court rule in U.S. Navy v. Egan in 1988, “The President, after all, is the ‘Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.’ U.S. Const., Art. II, 2. His authority to classify and control access to information bearing on national security and to determine whether an individual is sufficiently trustworthy to occupy a position in the Executive Branch that will give that person access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”
Read that again: the President’s power to control “access to such information flows primarily from this constitutional investment of power in the President and exists quite apart from any explicit congressional grant.”
This means the President has absolute control over all information in the federal government’s possession related to national security. All he has to do is a sign an order saying the Treasury payments systems are vital to national security and he can open them up as needed, under his inherent constitutional authority. That’s all it takes.
If going bankrupt would mean the U.S. could not defend itself, and we’re at risk of going bankrupt, then the President could go even further and declare a national debt emergency, which the U.S. District Court is arguably creating by blocking political oversight of federal spending.
Certainly, that might also include providing access as needed to track down the $233 billion to $521 billion of fraud that the GAO estimated goes out the door every year. How could it not?
And then Trump could make it all public, put it on USASpending.Gov, as needed — and as required by law. Congress could help by requiring it be done or suspend the Impoundment Control Act to give the President more latitude to rein in spending in this year’s budget, too, but it’s already enacted. There is very little question about it. Trump and DOGE are right.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
Reproduced with permission. Original here: GAO Estimated $233 Billion To $521 Billion Fraud Annually in 2024 As Court Clarifies Treasury Can Access Its Own Systems. Trump Should Just Publish Everything.
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