The Supreme Court in a 5-4 emergency ruling Wednesday
refused to halt a judge’s decision ordering the Trump
administration to immediately release nearly $2 billion
in foreign aid payments owed under existing contracts.
It hands a loss to the administration in the first time
that Trump’s efforts to drastically reshape federal
spending, agency by agency, have reached the high court.
Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett
joined with the court’s three liberals to side against
the administration.
Four of the court’s conservatives — Justices Clarence
Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh —
dissented.
“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks
jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the
Government of the United States to pay out (and probably
lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to
that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority
of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned,”
Alito wrote, joined by the three others.
The Trump administration has broadly looked to dismantle
the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),
including by firing employees and freezing its payments
to contractors, sparking a wave of lawsuits.
The Supreme Court’s emergency decision keeps in place a
lower judge’s order enforcing his directive that the
administration maintain foreign aid agreements that
existed before Trump took office.
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U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, an appointee of former
President Biden, had found the Trump administration
wasn’t complying with his order to resume the unpaid
USAID contracts and grants. Last week, Ali demanded the
funds be released by the end of the following day.
“Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now
passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary
injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify
what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure
compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due
regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines,”
the Supreme Court’s unsigned order reads.
The Justice Department quickly went to the Supreme Court
after Ali’s order, warning the administration couldn’t
comply so rapidly and asking for an emergency
intervention.
“The Executive Branch takes seriously its constitutional
duty to comply with the orders of Article III courts,”
the Justice Department wrote in court filings. “The
government is undertaking substantial efforts to review
payment requests and release payments. Officials at the
highest levels of government are engaged on this matter.”
Chief Justice John Roberts received the request by
default, just hours before last week’s midnight deadline.
He issued a brief delay until the court could hear from
both sides.
Now that it has, the full court denied the
administration’s motion, refusing to maintain the freeze
on the funding.
The group of USAID contractors suing warned they will
soon shutter without access to the funds. They urged the
justices to deny the government’s application, saying the
judge acted within his “sound discretion.”
“The government comes to this Court with an emergency of
its own making,” their attorneys wrote.
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