WASHINGTON (AP) The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid frozen.
The central issue in the legal dispute revolves around nearly $5 billion in aid approved by Congress, which President Donald Trump announced last month he would not spend, invoking a contested authority last utilized by a president around fifty years ago.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled that the Republican administration’s decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal.
On August 28, Trump informed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., via letter that he would not disburse $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, essentially reducing the budget without legislative approval.
He employed what is termed as a pocket rescission, a process where a president requests Congress toward the close of a budget year not to spend the allocated funds. The delay in notification prevents Congress from acting within the mandatory 45-day period, resulting in the funds remaining unspent.
Ali explained that Congress would need to approve the rescission proposal for Trump’s administration to withhold the funds. The law “is explicit that it is congressional action not the President’s transmission of a special message that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations,” he stated.
The Trump administration has prominently reduced foreign aid despite its minor impact on the deficit and the potential harm to America’s international reputation as it affects foreign communities’ access to essential resources and development programs. The administration appealed to the Supreme Court after a panel of federal appellate judges refused to stay Ali’s decision.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer criticized the ruling as “an unlawful injunction that precipitates an unnecessary emergency and needless interbranch conflict.” He urged the justices to block it immediately.
But lawyers for the nonprofit organizations that sued the government said it’s the funding freeze that violates federal law, noting that it has shut down funding for even the most urgent lifesaving programs abroad.
“This marks the third time in this case alone that the Administration has run to the Supreme Court in a supposed emergency posture to seek relief from circumstances of its own making this time to defend the illegal tactic of a ‘pocket rescission,’” attorney Lauren Bateman of Public Citizen Litigation Group, lead counsel for the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition plaintiffs, said in a statement. “The Administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to bless its attempt to unlawfully accumulate power.”
Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that another $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze would be spent before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
The case has been winding its way through the courts for months, and Ali said he understood that his ruling would not be the last word on the matter.
“This case raises questions of immense legal and practical importance, including whether there is any avenue to test the executive branch’s decision not to spend congressionally appropriated funds,” he wrote.
In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out an earlier injunction Ali had issued to require that the money be spent. But the three-judge panel did not shut down the lawsuit.
After Trump issued his rescission notice, the plaintiffs returned to Ali’s court and the judge issued the order that’s now being challenged.
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