Once money is allocated, it's often the Executive branch that is given wide discretion with regard to how to spend it. Congress doesn't tell DoD exactly how many boxes of ammo to buy and carve out a specific budget for muffins at conference meetings. We have billion-dollar slush funds all over Washington from money left over from efforts Congress funded - example: >$100 billion of COVID relief funding under the CARES Act still hasn't been spent.
The Trump administration could have defunded the program through an EO anytime after he was sworn in.
that would require the admin to be aware of it, and we already know for a fact they were keeping information from him...
Civics 101 - Who controls the federal purse?
Once money is allocated, it's often the Executive branch that is given wide discretion with regard to how to spend it. Congress doesn't tell DoD exactly how many boxes of ammo to buy and carve out a specific budget for muffins at conference meetings. We have billion-dollar slush funds all over Washington from money left over from efforts Congress funded - example: >$100 billion of COVID relief funding under the CARES Act still hasn't been spent.
Funding of the Azov Battalion was famously halted in 2018, according to the article.