Trump Paid Troops From Research Money and Announced a Donor's $130 Million Check

A Paycheck by Presidential Order

On October 15, 2025, the fifteenth day of a government shutdown, the troops' first paycheck of the fiscal year came due, and the appropriation for military pay had expired.¹² Donald Trump signed a memorandum that day directing the Pentagon to pay them from other available appropriations.¹ The money came from research: his administration moved $8 billion out of research and development funds for military pay, Federal News Network reported.³

The troops were paid.³ But the money was found one payday at a time, and as the shutdown went on, military families could not plan past the next check.³⁴ In Harker Heights, Texas, Army spouse Dolce Garcia, worried about rent and diapers, sought food at an Armed Services YMCA pantry because she did not know whether her husband's pay would arrive.⁴ It is, she told Stars and Stripes, "not until the last day that we know if they will be paying us."⁴

The charge is that Trump tried to take for himself decisions Congress had written into law: what public money could fund and which workers were entitled to be paid.⁵⁶¹⁷ Each act was his own.¹⁸⁷ He signed the memorandum.¹ Eight days later he announced that a friend had sent a $130 million check for the military.⁸ And on October 7, asked whether furloughed workers should get back pay, he had answered, "I would say it depends on who we're talking about."⁷ Later in the same appearance he said he followed the law, and Congress went on to require the back pay.⁷⁹

The order was National Security Presidential Memorandum 8:¹

National Security Presidential Memorandum/NSPM-8¹

I direct the Secretary of War, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, to use for the purpose of pay and allowances any funds appropriated by the Congress that remain available for expenditure in Fiscal Year 2026 to accomplish the scheduled disbursement of military pay and allowances for active duty military personnel, as well as for Reserve component military personnel who have performed active service during the relevant pay period.

The memorandum named no account.² It left the choice to the secretary, requiring a reasonable, logical relationship between the funds' appropriated purpose and military pay, consistent with applicable law.¹ It also called for lawful efforts, once the shutdown ended, to adjust accounts so operations and activities could continue with their previously planned spending.¹

Congress had handled this problem before: ahead of the 2013 shutdown it passed the Pay Our Military Act, and President Barack Obama signed it, to keep active-duty pay flowing.¹⁰ In 2025 Trump issued the payroll directive himself, invoking commander-in-chief authority and asserting that existing congressional appropriations could cover the pay.¹ A legislative route was tried in 2025 as well: Federal News Network reported on October 30 that Senator Chris Coons sought unanimous consent to pass the Armed Forces Pay Act and Senator Mitch McConnell blocked it.³

The Administration's Defense, and Its Limit

The administration defended the payroll on two grounds, readiness and budget law.¹² Trump's memorandum called a missed payday "a serious and unacceptable threat to military readiness."¹ White House talking points tied pay to research spending: troops who cannot meet basic household needs cannot use military technology effectively, the Congressional Research Service recounted.² The budget argument was that the dedicated payroll funding, once expired, no longer existed in law, which freed the Pentagon to use research money for salaries.²

On readiness, the payroll met its stated goal for mid-October: service members saw deposits from October 13 through October 15, Federal News Network reported.³ The White House put the first half of October's military payroll at about $6.5 billion, the outlet reported.³

The budget argument is the one the Congressional Research Service challenged, in a May 1, 2026 report that is a legal analysis, not a ruling on the payroll decision.² Expired funds still exist in law, with limited uses, contrary to the White House premise.² CRS questioned whether the attorney general or the comptroller general had ever endorsed treating a funding lapse as permission to use other money.² Agencies have discretion to pay expenses reasonably related to a funded purpose.² But when Congress sets aside money for a specific expense, an agency cannot draw on a more general fund to cover a shortfall unless Congress authorizes it.² The purpose statute states the rule directly:⁵

31 U.S.C. §1301(a)⁵

Appropriations shall be applied only to the objects for which the appropriations were made except as otherwise provided by law.

A $130 Million Check for the Armed Forces

Trump's second move brought a private donor into military pay.⁸ On October 14, 2025, he told reporters that a wealthy donor had offered to cover any shortfall in troop pay.¹¹ On October 23 he said the money had come from a friend, declined to identify him, and said it would go to the military:⁸

Remarks in a Roundtable Discussion With the Homeland Security Task Force and an Exchange With Reporters⁸

And today he sent us a check for $130 million.

Federal News Network later reported that the Pentagon received the donation from billionaire Timothy Mellon for military salaries.³ Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell confirmed acceptance under general gift-acceptance authority and said the donor conditioned the gift on covering service members' salaries and benefits, the Associated Press reported.¹² Acceptance is documented; neither report, nor Trump's announcement, accounts for how much of the gift was spent on salaries.³¹²⁸

On November 20, seven senators led by Andy Kim asked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Inspector General Steven Stebbins what authority allowed the Pentagon to accept and obligate the money.¹³ They acknowledged that Congress permits private donations, but argued that spending them without an appropriation likely violated the Antideficiency Act.¹³ They also asked what checks verified the donor's citizenship and affiliations, excluded foreign money, and protected defense contracting from the donor's interests.¹³

The Pentagon has a possible answer.¹⁴ The Antideficiency Act permits obligations before an appropriation when another law authorizes them.⁶ One gift statute, 10 U.S.C. §2601, expressly lets the Secretary of Defense accept and spend a qualifying gift without further specific authorization in law.¹⁴ That statute has conditions.¹⁴ It covers gifts for specified institutions or organizations and for qualifying wounded or ill personnel and their families.¹⁴ It bars acceptance when use would violate an applicable prohibition or limitation, when the gift's conditions conflict with law or regulations, or when the secretary makes the specified adverse findings about impartiality or integrity.¹⁴ Whether a gift for payroll qualified remained the question: Parnell identified no statutory section in AP's report, and the senators sought the actual legal basis.¹²¹³¹⁴

The senators put the military's biweekly payroll at approximately $6.5 billion.¹³ Against that figure, the $130 million gift equaled about 2% of one payroll.¹³ By an estimate the senators cited, it equaled about one-third of one day's pay for the force.¹³ A gift that small could supplement pay; it could not fund the armed forces through a prolonged shutdown.¹³

Furloughed Workers Got a Different Answer

Civilian workers sent home without pay got a different answer from Trump than the troops did.⁷¹ Their back pay was a matter of statute: the Government Employee Fair Treatment Act of 2019 established it for federal employees furloughed during a shutdown, subject to enactment of appropriations ending the lapse.¹⁵⁶ Asked on October 7 whether they should receive it, Trump drew a distinction:⁷

Remarks Prior to a Meeting With Prime Minister Mark Carney of Canada and an Exchange With Reporters⁷

But, for the most part, we're going to take care of our people. There are some people that really don't deserve to be taken care of, and we'll take care of them in a different way.

Asked afterward why only some workers, Trump replied, "Well, you're going to have to figure that out."⁷ When another reporter said the law required back pay and asked whether he would defy it, Trump answered, "I follow the law."⁷ That assurance did not withdraw his distinction between workers he thought deserved care and those he did not.⁷

The administration's best argument rested on the statute's condition.¹⁶ On October 3, OMB General Counsel Mark Paoletta drafted a memorandum, marked pre-decisional and published by The Washington Post, arguing that the 2019 amendments were not self-executing: Congress had to expressly appropriate furloughed workers' back pay in the law ending the shutdown, as it had when it ended the 2019 shutdown.¹⁶⁶ OMB's guidance of the same day addressed payment for employees who kept working and omitted the furloughed workers' guarantee.¹⁷

Congress supplied the appropriation Paoletta said was required.¹⁶⁹ The November 12 law ending the shutdown expressly made funds available for the statutory back payments and required that they be made.⁹ Section 120(e) also stripped executive-agency reductions in force taken between October 1 and enactment of any force or effect, required affected employees' notices to be rescinded and their employment status restored, and required the pay they otherwise would have received.⁹ By January 30, 2026, OMB's guidance expressly recognized furloughed employees' back pay under the 2019 law, while still conditioning payment on specific appropriations for that purpose.¹⁸ The draft argument did not become a lasting denial of shutdown back pay: Congress closed off that outcome.⁹¹⁸

Families Still Had to Plan for an Uncertain Paycheck

The workaround had to be repeated.³ On October 30, Federal News Network reported that a senior White House official had identified another $5.3 billion for troop pay: research funds, procurement funds and money originally set aside for housing allowances in the July spending law.³ Former Pentagon comptroller Elaine McCusker estimated that roughly $1.5 billion remained from the earlier $8 billion transfer to help cover that payroll.³ That was money redirected from named purposes, not $5.3 billion added to the government's resources.³

The Pentagon and OMB confirmed that the November 1 paychecks would go through, Stars and Stripes reported.⁴ But Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had warned on October 26 that troops would go without pay by November 15 if the shutdown continued.⁴ At the pantry where Garcia sought food, the director said weekly food distribution had risen from 8,000 to 14,000 pounds.⁴

Paying the troops relieved real pressure: a pantry near Fort Stewart reported fewer soldiers seeking help once they were assured of payment.⁴ The families described the shutdown as the source of their uncertainty and need.⁴

The shutdown ended on November 12, 2025.⁹ Regular funding returned through legislation: Congress enacted full-year military personnel appropriations on February 3, 2026.¹⁹

The Charge Is Control Over the Money

The Constitution permits payments from the Treasury only under appropriations made by law.²⁰ In Office of Personnel Management v. Richmond, the Supreme Court described the Appropriations Clause as a straightforward and explicit command.²¹

During the shutdown, Trump asserted control over the purpose of appropriated money, brought a private donor into military payroll, and spoke of workers' pay in terms of who deserved his care.¹³⁸⁷ Congress had assigned the spending purposes and established the back-pay entitlement.⁵⁶ Article II provides impeachment and removal for high crimes and misdemeanors, a standard Alexander Hamilton described as reaching abuses or violations of public trust.²⁰²² That attempted shift of control from law to presidential choice is the abuse of public trust at issue, and the reason this conduct belongs in the case for impeachment.²⁰²²¹⁷