The Trump administration, now more than two weeks into a government shutdown, is taking some extraordinary measures to keep certain law enforcement personnel from missing a paycheck.
The Defense Department started the trend this week by repurposing $6.5 billion in unspent research and development funds to keep active-duty service members from missing a paycheck on Wednesday. Military personnel have never missed a paycheck during a government shutdown.
In another usual step, FBI Director Kash Patel told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that the Trump administration has taken steps to ensure that the bureau’s special agents will be paid during the shutdown.
“Thanks to your great work, Mr. President, special agents at the FBI are going to receive their paychecks,” Patel said.
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Patel didn’t specify what funding the FBI would use to keep paying its special agents, and the FBI didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the Justice Department’s updated contingency plans, all of the FBI’s nearly 37,000 employees are “excepted” during a shutdown, meaning they work without being paid on time, but will receive back pay once the shutdown ends. The FBI has more than 13,200 special agents.
The FBI Agents Association thanked Trump in a Thursday statement “for ensuring that FBI special agents will continue to be paid during the government shutdown.”
“This effort reflects the essential role FBI agents play in protecting the American people. The FBI’s success, however, depends on more than its agents. Analysts, professional staff, and other personnel — who continue to work without pay — play a vital role in confronting threats from terrorism and cyberattacks to violent crime and corruption,” the association wrote.
If the shutdown continues much longer, the association said the bureau will be forced to restrict travel, training, hiring and other essential functions. Those actions, the association wrote, would slow investigations and weaken coordination with law enforcement partners.
Meanwhile, attorneys at the Justice Department are continuing to represent the Trump administration in court, even though they are working through the shutdown without pay.
“Let me say, at least to some of you, that I appreciate your being here and sharing your thoughts with me, because I know you’re not being paid for your time,” Judge Susan Illston said Wednesday in a hearing at the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, before issuing an order temporarily blocking the Trump administration from implementing its latest round of federal workforce layoffs.
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The Trump administration, however, is not using these extraordinary measures to keep other excepted federal employees from missing a paycheck. Many federal employees received their first partial paycheck last Friday, and are set to miss their first full paycheck later this month.
“Got a lot of people paid actually,” Trump said Thursday. “We got the people that we want paid, paid. And we want the FBI paid. We got want the military paid. We got the people that we want paid.”
Trump told reporters this week that a government shutdown “shouldn’t have happened,” but that his administration is using the funding lapse as an opportunity to close “Democrat” programs.
“We’re terminating those programs, and they’re going to be terminated on a permanent basis. And it’s thousands of people, and it’s billions of dollars. We’re getting rid of a lot of things that we never wanted because of the fact that they made this stupid move,” Trump said.
Bobby Kogan, a former Office of Management and Budget official during the Biden administration, now a senior director at the Center for American Progress, said the Trump administration faces limits on how it can repurpose funds — and that the administration is likely exceeding some of those limits, as prohibited under the Antideficiency Act.
“It’s very clear that, at least during this shutdown, they do not feel beholden to purpose language. And once you are not beholden to purpose language, you are saying, ‘I get to spend money however I want,’” Kogan said. “They’re doing it in a limited case. They’re spending DoD money on DoD, even if it’s on the wrong thing. They’re spending DOJ money on DOJ, even if it’s in the wrong place. But that’s a self-imposed limit. You’re not allowed to do that.”
OMB Director Russ Vought said Thursday that the Trump administration has been “playing budgetary Twister” to identify pots of money that have a “similar purpose,” and can be used to keep paying excepted federal employees who must normally wait until the end of a shutdown to be paid.
“We’ve paid for the military, law enforcement and border, and they’ll get their paychecks,” Vought said on The Charlie Kirk Show, adding that “the people that are doing essential services are not getting paid.”
OMB posted on X Tuesday that the agency “is making every preparation to batten down the hatches and ride out the Democrats’ intransigence.”
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“Pay the troops, pay law enforcement, continue the RIFs, and wait,” OMB wrote.
Despite these workarounds, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wrote in a press release Thursday that “ICE law enforcement officers are risking their lives without pay.”
Kogan said the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that was signed into law this summer gave DHS additional funds, with few conditions on how to spend that money. He said that funding could likely be used to keep paying most DHS employees during the shutdown.
“They gave a lot of money to DHS, and it has broad discretion for how much they want to use it. There’s tons of money, so it’s a question for them whether they want to spend it down,” Kogan said. “But they have money to pay DHS.”
The legislation also gave funding to the Justice Department, but those funds are set aside for immigration judges.
“If you tried to use that on the FBI, you have a pretty clear Antideficiency Act and purpose statute violation,” Kogan said.
Before the shutdown, Democratic lawmakers challenged OMB’s impoundment decisions, withholding congressional appropriations from programs. But now, the administration is doing the opposite — moving funds obligated for one purpose and using them for another.
“If you take that together with impoundments, you now have both sides of the ledger. You have not spending when you must spend, and spending when you’re not allowed to spend,” Kogan said. “Once you’ve decided to unilaterally do illegal things, everything is a choice. Why did you decide not to pay meat inspectors? Why did you decide not to pay the people who are making sure our Social Security checks go out on time?”
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