Trump’s move to pay troops amid shutdown sets dangerous precedent, experts warn

Experts see move as Trump's latest attempt to shift power of the purse away from Congress and into executive branch

By ordering that US military personnel receive paychecks even though the government is shut down, Donald Trump is seeing to the needs of a politically untouchable constituency that has been caught up in the congressional logjam over federal spending.

But experts who spoke to the Guardian warn that he is doing so in a way that is almost certainly illegal and, if left unchecked, bodes ill for Congress's constitutional authority to control government spending. Some fear it could set the stage for the president to unilaterally fund other contentious decisions in the future, such as the deployment of the military on US soil.