More from the cited article ...

... It was mid-September when Sen. Lisa Murkowski discovered that the Trump administration had pulled education funding for institutions serving Alaskan and Hawaiian Natives.

It was close to $350 million, "that we just found out about," she told NOTUS last week, as Congress sat in a stalemate over how to prevent a government shutdown.

The Department of Education announced the change on Sept. 10, stating that the funding intended for those programs would be repurposed for other unspecified education programs.

Murkowski said she has no idea where the money is going.

Across federal agencies, the Trump administration's aggressive slash-and-burn approach to federal programs, grants and contracts has repeatedly challenged Congress' power of the purse.

The administration has claimed it has the discretion to redirect funds to programs aligned with Trump's agenda -- and Republican congressional leaders have largely let them do it.

The outcome: Billions in taxpayer dollars have become virtually untraceable -- a level of opaqueness in government funds that's raising questions around the legality of the administration's actions. ...