Democrats in the House and Senate attempted to use military pay as a pressure point amid the ongoing government shutdown to force Republicans to cave to their unrelated demands on healthcare subsidies and taxpayer benefits for illegal aliens, but it didn't work.

In a move that seemingly sidestepped Congress, President Donald Trump's administration used previously appropriated but otherwise unobligated funds at the Pentagon to ensure that no military troops missed a paycheck this past week, according to Newsmax.

Democrats and other critics cried foul and claimed that Trump broke the law, but the administration justified the move by citing several examples of similar actions by past presidents of repurposing funds appropriated by Congress for other things.

Trump finds funds to pay military troops

During a government shutdown, most federal employees technically work without getting paid -- though they typically receive full backpay later -- and that includes military service members, which Democrats seized upon as a way to guilt-trip Republicans into giving in to their partisan demands and conditions to reopen the government.

President Trump wouldn't allow that to happen, though, and announced in a Truth Social post last weekend, "If nothing is done, because of 'Leader' Chuck Schumer and the Democrats, our Brave Troops will miss the paychecks they are rightfully due on October 15th."

"That is why I am using my authority, as Commander in Chief, to direct our Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to use all available funds to get our Troops PAID on October 15th," he continued. "We have identified funds to do this, and Secretary Hegseth will use them to PAY OUR TROOPS."

"I will not allow the Democrats to hold our Military, and the entire Security of our Nation, HOSTAGE, with their dangerous Government Shutdown," Trump added. "The Radical Left Democrats should OPEN THE GOVERNMENT, and then we can work together to address Healthcare, and many other things that they want to destroy."

Explanation sent to Congress

Axios reported that President Trump's Office of Management and Budget sent a memo to relevant lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Friday to explain how the Pentagon had shifted previously appropriated but as-yet unobligated research and development funds to instead cover the salaries of military troops.

In doing so, OMB cited a dozen past examples of prior administrations, from Presidents George Washington to John F. Kennedy, using appropriated funds for military purposes that were not specifically authorized by Congress.

Not everybody agrees with that justification, however, including Bobby Kogan, a former top OMB official under the Biden administration, who asserted in an X post that the Trump administration was "now breaking both sides of spending law."

"They’re illegally not spending where the law requires them to spend, & they’re illegally spending where they don’t have money to spend," he added. "What we have is an appropriations king. Spending 'deals' are meaningless under that."

Did Trump's move to pay troops break the law?

Military.com reported that while the Trump administration's move to guarantee paychecks for the military was unusual, it was not entirely unheard of, and the roughly $8 billion used to cover salaries was transferred over from a pool of unspent money for research, development, test, and evaluation.

Some legal critics have claimed that the move violates the Antideficiency Act, which forbids the government from spending money in excess, advance, or outside of normally appropriated funds for particular purposes.

However, other legal analysts have surmised that the move falls within a not necessarily illegal gray area, in that the unobligated research and development funds were "available" after being previously appropriated, and that keeping troops paid to boost morale was a justifiable "necessity" in an "emergency."