President Donald Trump is relying on a relatively obscure federal agency to reshape government. The Office of Personnel Management was created in 1979 by President Jimmy Carter and is the equivalent of the government's human resources departent.

Senate Democrats are demanding Republicans postpone a vote scheduled for Thursday on Russell Vought, President Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Management and Budget, after the budget office on Monday issued a broadly worded memo freezing large swaths of federal assistance.

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.

The matter was so important that it was a central issue in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 when Parliament and its allies forced the abdication of King James II and installed in his place King William and Queen Mary. The ascension of the dual monarchs was contingent upon their accepting the English Bill of Rights.

A two-page OMB memo falsely claims that the president can refuse to spend money on programs authorized by Congress

The Constitution, federal law and court decisions make it clear: President Donald Trump's order to pause federal funding is against the law, legal experts tell ABC News.

Donald Trump promised to do everything he could to challenge a Nixon-era impoundment law. The OMB's grant freeze is likely just the first step.

Robert F Kennedy Jr is the latest of Donald Trump’s controversial cabinet picks to be grilled by Senators as he vies to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. The 71-year-old began facing the Senate Finance Committee at 10 a.

By Tuesday afternoon, a federal judge had put the order on a brief stay while challenges to the administration work their way through the courts. But the controversy was far from over.

That roped Senate Budget Committee Chairman Lindsay Graham into the heated back and forth, who impressed on Vought that he did not have attorney-client privilege to evade a line of questioning as some of Trump’s other nominees did. “I am not claiming a privilege, Senator,” Vought said.

The Trump administration reversed its policy to freeze grants and loans while officials evaluated whether spending met the president's priorities.

As a presidential candidate last year, Donald Trump declared that if California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) did not divert more of the state’s limited water supply to farmers, “we won’t give him money to put out all his fires. And if we don’t give him the money to put out his fires, he’s got problems.”