EXPERT ADVISORY

University of Michigan experts are available to discuss the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze federal loans and grants, firing special employees involved in prosecutions of the president and other actions.

Donald Moynihan is a professor of public policy whose research seeks to improve how the government works by studying the administrative burdens people encounter in their interactions with the government. He co-directs the Better Government Lab, which looks for technology and other types of interventions to help government improve access to the social safety net.

“The pause on funding represents what amounts to a self-imposed government shutdown for a very large part of the government, featuring an extraordinary degree of uncertainty,” he said. “The intervention of political appointees to review appropriated funds for alignment with the president’s goals on this scale is unprecedented.

“In the first Trump administration you had general counsels, federal employees and even some political appointees saying they would not do illegal things. In the second Trump administration, those appointees are gone, general counsels will greenlight or be fired and civil servants will be fired for resisting.”

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Samuel Bagenstos, professor of law and public policy, specializes in civil rights, labor and employment law, health law and governance.

“The Trump Administration is ostentatiously flouting Congress’ power of the purse, which is one of the most basic principles of our republic,” he said. “It’s almost like they’re daring people to sue them so they can challenge the constitutionality of the Impoundment Control Act and get the Supreme Court to decide the issue as soon as possible.”

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Contact: [email protected]

Mitchel Sollenberger, professor of political science at UM-Dearborn, is an expert on executive privilege. He was short-listed to be the special master in the Mar-a-Lago documents case stemming from the first Trump administration and has written or co-written four books examining the reach and limits of executive powers.

“This series of executive orders—be it hiring or funding freezes or those that strip civil service protections from a class of federal workers—can be seen as tools Trump is using to advance a long-standing presidential objective to gain complete and absolute control over the executive branch,” he said.

Contact: [email protected]