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Justification for that move after the fact. again, this reporting suggests that this was yet another instance of a scramble by officials to essentially catch up with another one of president trump s decisions. the office of management and budget, though, is denying that anything improper took place. here s a statement from a spokeswoman for the office of management and budget, rachel semel. she says, to be clear, there was a legal consensus at every step of the way that the money could be withheld in order to conduct the policy review. omb works closely with agencies on executing the budget. routine practices and procedures were followed. now, a senior administration official also told me that the legal justification for this temporary freeze on the aid was provided in late july alongside the formal notification that this aid was being frozen. this official suggested that perhaps the discrepancy involves the fact that this was something that was in the pipeline that ....