Senior government officials, including some in the White House, privately expressed concern that the Trump administration’s nearly $30 billion bailout for farmers needed stronger legal backing, the Washington Post reported. The bailout was created by the Trump administration as a way to try to calm outrage from farmers who complained they were caught in the middle of the White House’s trade war with China. In an attempt to pacify farmers, the Agriculture Department created an expansive new program without precedent. As part of the program, the USDA authorized $12 billion in bailout funds last year and another $16 billion this year, and Trump has said more money could be on the way. But two Agriculture Department officials involved in the bailout program said that they were worried the funding could surpass the original intent of the New Deal-era Commodity Credit Corp., which is being used to distribute the money. The CCC, as it is known, had previously been used only to create substantially more limited programs. Separately, some officials in the Office of Management and Budget also raised questions about the scope of $16 billion in a second round of bailout funds. They pushed the Agriculture Department to provide more legal reasoning for the effort, the officials said. In a statement, a USDA spokesman officials said the concerns raised by OMB were already resolved, however.
