As the Trump administration paused potentially trillions of dollars of federal grant, loan and other financial assistance programs, the question in the criminal justice field was whether state and local anticrime aid expanded to hundreds of millions of dollars in the Biden administration would survive the review.
No one knew the answer hours after the surprise order from the Office of Management and Budget on Monday.
One of the first clues to the upheaval came at 10;44 a.m. Monday, when the National Institute of Justice, which funds research nationwide, sent out a notice saying that, "At this time, NIJ has cancelled all previously posted Notices of Funding Opportunity and associated webinars."
The governmentwide announcement from OMB appears to affect all Justice Department funding agencies.
As an example, before the memo went into effect, the DOJ Bureau of Justice Assistance was promoting grants for programs including veterans treatment courts, and efforts to combat both hate crimes and firearm crime.
Although President Trump ran on an anticrime platform, it is not clear exactly which federal programs he supports, and congressional Republicans who oversee the Justice Department budget have expressed opposition to some federal spending on justice programs.
The suspension will provide the administration with time to review agency programs and determine the best uses of funding for those programs consistent with the law and Trump's priorities, says a White House Office of Management and Budget memo.
Agencies have until Feb. 10 to submit detailed information on any programs, projects or activities subject to the pause.
The OMB memo says that "to the extent permissible under applicable law, Federal agencies must temporarily pause [bold in original] all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance, and other relevant agency activities that may be implicated by the executive orders, including, but not limited to, financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal."
The memo created confusion across Washington, Axios reports..
It could affect at least tens of billions of dollars in payments, Brian Riedl of the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank, told the Washington Post.
"The funding delays are going to prove very difficult for grantees under the impression the money is coming, and have rent and salary payments dependent upon it," Riedl said. "It seems like a very big deal."
Top Democratic congressional budget appropriation lawmakers, Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, told OMB: "The scope of what you are ordering is breathtaking, unprecedented, and will have devastating consequences across the country.
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