The National Institutes of Health violated federal law that prevents presidents from withholding funds appropriated by Congress, according to a report published Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office. 

The GAO, a nonpartisan congressional watchdog agency, issued a new report finding that the termination of more than 1,800 NIH grants since President Donald Trump took office in January violates the Impoundment Control Act, a 1974 law meant to protect Congress’s power of the purse. 

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The grants targeted by the NIH were cut off from federal funding following Trump’s executive orders prohibiting funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, and gender ideology in federal activities, including biomedical research. 

“Based on publicly available evidence and the lack of any special message pertaining to NIH funds, GAO concludes that NIH violated the ICA by withholding funds from obligation and expenditure,” reads the agency’s report.

The GAO also found that, between February and June, the NIH obligated roughly $8 billion less from its fiscal 2025 budget than it did during the same period last year. 

That, coupled with the grant terminations, led the GAO to conclude “that NIH’s actions to carry out various executive directives delayed the obligation and expenditure of NIH’s appropriations.”

The GAO report outlines that the appropriations authority is vested in Congress by the Constitution and that the ICA gives the president “strictly circumscribed authority” to impound funds. But within these limited exceptions, the president must inform Congress of the amount and reasons for the proposed impoundment. 

GAO findings are not legally binding, but they could empower Congress to push back against the Trump administration’s withholding of biomedical research budgets.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR), the top Democrat on the Senate Budget Committee, said in a press statement that withholding funds appropriated by Congress for NIH research “is not only dangerous but could be deadly” because of the cutting-edge treatments that come from the agency’s research.

“Donald Trump is not a king, and the laws of our land are not suggestions. Congressional Republicans need to stop placating the administration and start holding Trump and his administration accountable for not following the law,” said Merkley.

A Health and Human Services spokesperson declined the Washington Examiner’s request to comment directly on Tuesday’s GAO report. Instead, the spokesperson pointed to the department’s response to the GAO’s investigation, published in June. 

The HHS June response to the GAO’s inquiry outlined its rationale for pausing publication of grant notices in the Federal Register and how the NIH had resumed scheduling grant review meetings. 

However, the GAO’s Tuesday report indicates that HHS’s June response document did not address the issue of current obligations for NIH funds.

Staffing and grant problems with the NIH have drawn significant attention in recent months as the biomedical agency has been the target of many public health changes from the Trump administration and HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

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In June, more than 5,000 NIH scientists published a declaration complaining that NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya has “politicized research” by terminating grants, cutting off global communications, and firing scientists and agency staff.

Former NIH nutrition scientist Kevin Hall, who left the agency in April, said that a culture of censorship under Kennedy made him “question whether NIH continues to be a place where I can freely conduct unbiased science.”