Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration to freeze billions in foreign aid payments for now, putting on hold a lower court ruling that required officials to spend $4 billion of that money by the end of the month.
Roberts, who handles emergency appeals from federal courts in Washington, DC, issued what’s known as an administrative stay – a temporary order intended to give the justices more time to review the case.
The order does not necessarily indicate how the court will ultimately resolve the appeal, though it could make it harder for the groups that sued over the cuts to recover the money approved by Congress.
Roberts ordered the groups challenging the move to respond to the Trump administration by Friday afternoon.
At issue is $4 billion in foreign aid, including for global health and HIV programs, that was approved by Congress but that President Donald Trump has deemed wasteful. Trump signed an executive order on his first day in office attempting to curtail foreign aid spending, and his administration has for months been fighting lower court orders that blocked his effort.
The spending of foreign aid is a “joint enterprise between our two political branches,” US District Judge Amir Ali wrote in a March opinion that mostly sided against Trump.
But in this case, Ali wrote, “the executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place.”
Ali, who was appointed to the federal bench by President Joe Biden, then ruled late Wednesday that the administration can’t withhold the money without congressional approval. The US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit declined to pause that ruling, and the Trump administration asked for emergency intervention from the Supreme Court on Monday.
“The president can hardly speak with one voice in foreign affairs or in dealings with Congress when the district court is forcing the executive branch to advocate against its own objectives,” US Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the court.
Grant recipients had sued over access to billions of dollars for global health and HIV/AIDS programs that were appropriated by Congress to be disbursed by the State Department and the now-essentially shuttered US Agency for International Development.
The administration told the Supreme Court that it intends to spend $6.5 billion of the foreign aid that was at issue in the case by September 30, but it wants the justices to allow it to withhold another $4 billion.
In late August, Trump alerted Congress that he intended to claw back that money using a rare “pocket rescission.” That move, which would effectively cancel the spending unless Congress considers the proposal, has complicated negotiations to avoid a government shutdown by the end of the month.
The groups that sued over the cuts argued that an administrative stay could effectively decide the case in the government’s favor, allowing the administration to run out the clock and never spend the money at issue.
“The government’s theory that the agencies need not comply with enacted legislation mandating that they spend funds, because the president has unilaterally proposed legislation to rescind those statutory mandates, would fundamentally upend our constitutional structure,” the groups told the court.
This story has been updated with additional details.
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