President Trump has co-opted Congress’s power of the purse by privately raising hundreds of billions of dollars from corporations and foreign governments outside the legally required appropriations process. In recent months, the administration has used corporate donations to start construction on a White House ballroom, accepted a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the Qatari royal family, and used $130 million in privately donated funds to pay service members during a government shutdown. Each of these arrangements channels private or foreign money into public functions without a congressional appropriation. They are violations, in letter or in spirit, of the Miscellaneous Receipts Act, a core fiscal statute that requires all money or property “received for the Government” to be deposited in the Treasury unless Congress says otherwise.
The Trump administration’s growing use of private donations and foreign financing to supplement congressional appropriations illustrates how easily the Miscellaneous Receipts Act and Congress’s power of the purse can be bypassed. These “shadow appropriations” empower the executive branch to direct money toward its own priorities without congressional authorization or oversight.
Unless Congress acts, the presidency will acquire a second, hidden budget: slush funds drawn from corporations and foreign governments with no external oversight. The power of the purse anchors Congress’s independence, keeping the legislature from becoming a spectator to executive power. Unless Congress reasserts control over federal spending, the balance the framers designed could collapse into a self-financing presidency.
The Legal Framework
The Constitution’s Appropriations Clause provides that “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” The Miscellaneous Receipts Act (MRA) gives that command practical force: “an official or agent of the Government receiving money for the Government from any source shall deposit the money in the Treasury.” In other words, the MRA applies when (1) a government official or agent receives funds and (2) those funds are for the government. Once deposited in the Treasury, the funds can be withdrawn only through an appropriation enacted by Congress.
Congress has carved out limited exceptions to the MRA by authorizing certain agencies to accept private gifts. These agencies have specific gift-acceptance statutes allowing them to accept money, services, or property from private donors without violating the MRA. Other agencies have no such authority at all. Where these statutes exist, their terms vary: some require ethics reviews, limit gifts to particular purposes, or bar donors from placing conditions on how their contributions are used. When a gift fits within a valid statutory authorization, the agency may keep it without breaching the MRA. But, unless the law also authorizes the agency to spend those funds, using them would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, which forbids federal officials from obligating or spending money without an appropriation or other legal authority.
The MRA underpins a longstanding rule of appropriations law known as the anti-augmentation principle: an agency’s lawful funding equals, and cannot exceed, the funds Congress has appropriated. Any outside money or in-kind benefit used to expand an agency’s budget violates that rule. To prevent circumvention, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and the courts have recognized the doctrine of constructive receipt, treating money or property as “received” when the government effectively controls their use, even if never directly taking possession. The doctrine ensures that agencies cannot evade the MRA simply by structuring transactions such that no federal official ever handles the money.
GAO and OLC have applied the constructive-receipt doctrine differently. OLC takes a narrower view, permitting third-party settlements so long as the government retains no control over the funds after the agreement is executed. GAO applies a broader, substance-focused standard that looks to the government’s practical influence or involvement in how the funds are used. It has historically viewed third-party payments as bypassing Congress’s control absent strong justification.
Officials who violate the MRA may be removed from office and required to forfeit any portion of the funds they hold or would otherwise be entitled to. Though the statute carries no criminal penalties, related laws prohibiting the misuse of government resources can still apply. Together, these safeguards uphold the MRA’s deeper purpose: preserving Congress’s power of the purse and ensuring that the executive spends only what the people’s representatives have approved.
Shadow Appropriations in Practice
Throughout 2025, the administration’s approach to the MRA has evolved from quiet workarounds to overt evasion, an experiment in ever more aggressive executive self-financing. It began in March, when several major law firms agreed to provide roughly $1 billion in pro bono legal services for causes chosen by the administration. Because the government retained post-settlement control over which organizations would receive those services, it constructively received the funds in violation of the MRA even under OLC’s narrower reading of the Act. The deals offered a blueprint for how the executive could pressure private actors to fund public priorities without an appropriation, a dangerous precedent I have analyzed separately.
By May, that blueprint was being put into practice. The Trump administration confirmed that it would accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One. The jet, worth roughly $400 million, may be the largest gift ever given to the United States by a foreign government. Now being modified for presidential travel, it will later be transferred to President Trump’s presidential library. Although the Justice Department approved the transfer, the administration has refused to release its legal rationale, which likely relies on the Defense Department’s gift-acceptance authorities. Whatever the justification, accepting a half-billion-dollar aircraft for use as Air Force One stretches the concept of a “gift” well beyond what Congress ever intended.
Two months later, in July, the same disregard reached the Justice Department. It entered a settlement requiring Brown University to pay $50 million to “state workforce development organizations,” rather than to the Treasury, and in November entered a similar settlement requiring Cornell University to invest $30 million in research projects that benefit U.S. farmers. Because the DOJ retained no post-settlement control over the funds, the agreements likely complied with OLC’s longstanding interpretation of the MRA. But they appear inconsistent with GAO’s broader approach to constructive receipt, as the payment neither compensated victims nor related to the underlying discrimination case. Moreover, they violated DOJ’s current settlements policy, contravening the Attorney General’s February 2025 directive not to use third-party payments to non-victims except in limited circumstances.
In July, the White House also announced plans for a 90,000-square-foot “Presidential Ballroom,” projected to cost roughly $300 million and to be funded entirely by private donors. Reporting identified multiple corporate pledges of more than $10 million each. President Trump later hosted the ballroom’s corporate donors at a White House reception, giving private financiers of a federal building access to the president at a taxpayer-funded event. Although he initially claimed the construction would not affect the East Wing, he subsequently demolished it. The administration has offered no legal theory for the donations but is likely relying on a gift statute for the Department of the Interior or the National Park Service. Like the Qatari jet, the project would stretch any such authority well past its intended scope, turning permission for routine donations into a vehicle for privately financing presidential construction.
By fall, what began as discrete gifts and settlements had expanded into a slush fund measured in the hundreds of billions. In exchange for partial tariff relief, Japan agreed to provide $550 billion in investment capital that President Trump would personally select. Because the administration determines which projects Japan must fund, the money is “received for the Government” under the MRA and must be deposited in the Treasury. Instead, it created a parallel, foreign-financed shadow budget under presidential control and outside Congress’s appropriations process. On November 14, South Korea struck a similar deal with the United States, committing $200 billion under essentially the same model. The following week, the Department of Energy’s chief of staff reportedly said in a conference speech that the Japanese funds may be used to buy and own as many as ten new nuclear reactors.
In October, the Trump administration announced that it intended to use a $130 million donation from billionaire Timothy Mellon to pay service members during the shutdown, but it has not disclosed whether any of the funds were actually spent. Using the donation for troop pay would violate the Anti-Deficiency Act, as the Department’s gift-acceptance statutes authorize it to receive such funds but not to spend them on salaries.
The Risks of Unchecked Violations
The MRA may seem like bureaucratic bookkeeping, but it embodies a deeper constitutional principle. The power of the purse is Congress’s ultimate check on executive power, ensuring a government of laws, not of men. As Madison wrote in Federalist 58, the “power over the purse” is the people’s “most complete and effectual weapon . . . for obtaining a redress of every grievance.”
History shows what happens when presidents raise and spend money outside Congress’s control. During the Iran-Contra affair, White House officials secretly sold weapons to Iran and used the proceeds—along with funds solicited from foreign governments—to support the Contra rebels in Nicaragua. The episode showed how executive self-financing—raising and spending money outside the appropriations process—undermines Congress’s control over public spending and allows presidents to act unilaterally on major policies.
When presidents can raise and spend money outside Congress, the constitutional balance between democratic accountability and executive authority threatens to give way. Once executive financing moves off budget, the damage radiates outward. Accountability erodes first, as presidents make unilateral decisions—even demolishing parts of the White House—without congressional consent. Transparency disappears next: appropriations are debated, recorded, and audited; donations and foreign transfers are often not. Then comes influence as companies or benefactors that finance presidential projects gain improper access and influence, blurring the line between public policy and private patronage. And when the money comes from abroad, leverage follows, embedding subtle obligations in the very assets meant to symbolize national sovereignty.
These constitutional breaches accumulate power in the presidency at the expense of Congress and, ultimately, the electorate. The MRA and other fiscal laws are how Congress restrains the executive, insisting that no president, however popular or powerful, may spend money without the people’s consent.
A Reform Agenda
To restore control over the public purse, Congress should begin by addressing the four recent executive actions that implicate the MRA.
(1) Qatari Jet: The Qatari jet could be auctioned off and the proceeds deposited in the Treasury, reaffirming that foreign governments may not endow the presidency directly.
(2) White House Ballroom: Congress could require the administration to disclose the size of each donation, provide transparent accounting of costs, and cap the total private budget or shift the project to taxpayer funding to mitigate conflicts. In essence, Congress should hold the project to at least the same standards of oversight and accountability that apply to any federally funded construction.
(3) Foreign Deals: For the Japan and South Korea deals, Congress should not allow any president to personally direct hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign-financed spending outside the appropriations process. At a minimum, it should either prohibit them from proceeding or else enact a statutory framework to bring them under transparent governance and appropriations control.
(4) Private Donation to Pay Troop Salaries: For the $130 million in privately donated troop pay, Congress should clarify that no gift authority permits substituting private funds for appropriated military pay and should require the Defense Department to unwind the transaction and restore compliance with the Anti-Deficiency Act. If that would violate the terms of the gift, the Department should return the funds to the donor or seek congressional authorization to do so.
These steps may face political resistance, but they show the scope of Congress’s authority to correct existing breaches. Even short of legislation, members of Congress can seek GAO opinions and request the ethics analyses and legal authorities the agencies relied upon. Over the longer term, Congress should strengthen the MRA’s enforcement mechanisms and narrow the exceptions the Trump administration has sought to exploit.
Congress Should Strengthen and Enforce the Miscellaneous Receipts Act
Congress should strengthen and enforce the Miscellaneous Receipts Act in several key ways:
1. Require Mandatory Reporting and Real Consequences for Violations
Congress should require agency heads to notify Congress and GAO of any MRA breach—mirroring the reporting obligations in the Anti-Deficiency Act—and to document corrective steps taken. To ensure compliance, Congress should attach meaningful penalties: civil or administrative sanctions for reckless conduct and criminal liability for knowing or willful violations, with a ten-year statute of limitations to preserve accountability across administrations.
Private entities should share responsibility as well. Corporations and executives who knowingly fund projects in violation of the MRA should face civil penalties proportionate to the amount contributed, deterring both improper government requests and improper private attempts to curry favor.
2. Modernize the Financial Oversight Infrastructure
Congress should integrate MRA oversight into the financial-integrity frameworks required under the Federal Managers’ Financial Integrity Act and the Chief Financial Officers Act. Incorporating MRA compliance into these internal-control systems would ensure that agencies treat MRA risks with the same rigor as other financial-integrity obligations and would institutionalize early detection and correction of violations.
3. Create Standardized Limits on Agency Gift Authorities
As GAO recommended in 1980, Congress should establish uniform criteria for the solicitation, acceptance, and use of gift funds. Those criteria should include clear statutory definitions, a consistent ethics-review process, and limits on what agencies may accept and what conditions—if any—donors may impose. Gift authorities should be confined to small, mission-related support, not major capital projects or operational assets such as a presidential aircraft.
4. Impose Dollar Caps on All Gifts and Donations
Congress should impose annual dollar limits on gifts an agency may accept—both from any single donor and in the aggregate for the agency—to ensure that gifts remain supplementary and mission-related rather than a parallel funding stream for major projects. Large gifts should also trigger an inspector general review and a written report to Congress, preventing agencies from using gift authority to finance major initiatives outside the appropriations process.
5. Require Comprehensive Notice and Disclosure
Congress should mandate a comprehensive transparency regime for significant gifts, donations, and third-party settlements. For any transfer over a specified dollar threshold, agencies should be required to provide at least 45 days’ advance written notice to the appropriations and authorizing committees and to GAO. Each notice should include the source and value of the contribution, any conditions the donor attached, the ethics review, and the legal analysis supporting the agency’s claimed statutory authority. Agencies should also report basic information on each donation to GAO on a quarterly basis, creating a continuous audit trail.
6. Impose Additional Safeguards Against Influencing the White House
Agency gifts directed to the President or Vice President raise special concerns and warrant heightened standards and review. Reflecting this concern, the recently introduced Stop Ballroom Bribery Act would apply additional limitations in the context of the National Park Service’s gift authorities, which the administration likely relied on for donations to the White House ballroom. Congress should adopt a complementary, government-wide rule—applicable across all statutory gift authorities—requiring heightened ethics review for any gift intended for presidential or vice-presidential use or whose primary function is to support their facilities, activities, or operations.
7. Codify and Clarify Limits on Third-Party Payments
Executive agreements and settlements that direct a counterparty to pay a third party can allow the executive branch to influence the use of funds outside the appropriations process, creating risks under the MRA. GAO and the Justice Department have recognized these risks, and DOJ adopted safeguards under the Biden Administration to prevent third-party payments from drifting beyond legitimate statutory purposes.
Congress should codify those principles. First, it should make explicit that funds effectively controlled by the United States may fall under the MRA even if the government never touches the money. Second, Congress should bar agencies from retaining any control or direction over unappropriated funds once an agreement is executed. Third, Congress should establish uniform guardrails modeled on the Biden administration’s safeguards. For example, any payment must have a direct nexus to the statutory authority or violation at issue, and the government may not direct payments to specific recipients.
These requirements should apply across all agencies with enforcement, regulatory, or negotiation authority, not just DOJ. They would preserve legitimate uses of third-party payments—such as victim compensation or remedies tied to statutory violations—while preventing agencies from using such arrangements to finance priorities Congress has not approved. To ensure oversight, any agreement requiring payment to a non-victim third party should be reported to GAO on a quarterly basis.
The Path Ahead
The MRA is meant to ensure that the power of the purse remains in Congress’s hands. Yet, shadow appropriations are emerging in real time and risk becoming normalized. The question before Congress is whether public spending will remain governed by law or drift toward presidential discretion. The power of the purse will endure only if Congress insists on exercising it.
