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.
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.
