Donald Trump’s effort to freeze trillions of dollars in federal grants is the most provocative of his many attempts to expand his power

Congressional Democrats and good government groups say President Donald Trump's Monday night directive to pause the distribution of trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans represents an immense power grab that would upend the constitutional separation of powers between different branches of government.

Donald Trump’s move to pause trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans awakened widespread Democratic resistance to the new president’s second term that was felt Tuesday on Capitol Hill, in governors’ offices and in the race to helm the party’s national committee.

For now, it seem lawmakers have settled on a bipartisan and largely toothless strategy: Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) penned a letter to Trump on Tuesday demanding that he “provide Congress with a written communication that contains the ‘substantive rationale,

President Trump’s mass firing of 17 inspectors general late Friday flouted the law and sparked widespread condemnation from those who see it as an effort to block oversight of his administration. The removals topple those responsible for providing an independent check on agencies and an avenue where whistleblowers can report wrongdoing — with Trump even