Federal judge blasts Trump administration for dodging order to resume USAID funding after freeze
A federal judge has reprimanded the Trump administration for failure to fully comply with a court order to temporarily restore funding for the U.S. Agency for International Development after a presidential executive order last month imposed a sudden, blanket freeze on all payments.
Washingon, D.C., District Judge Amir Ali accused officials of biding their time as they investigate ways to dodge the order.
“The Court was not inviting Defendants to continue the suspension [of funds] while they reviewed contracts and legal authorities to come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension,” Ali wrote in the order issued Thursday.
Defendants cannot “simply continue their blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid pending a review of the agreements for whether they should be continued or terminated. That is the very action that the Court temporarily enjoined because Plaintiffs had shown that blanket suspension pending review would cause irreparable harm and was likely arbitrary and capricious,” the judge stated.
Ali last week ordered the administration to continue to disburse U.S. foreign assistance following arguments from federal contractors owed money challenging an executive order signed by President Donald Trump pausing nearly all foreign assistance.
Ali ruled that the funding had to be restored until legal arguments can be heard in the case.
The Department of Justice had argued that the Trump administration had “substantially” complied with Ali’s order, which he said was insufficient.
The judge also noted in the ruling Thursday that the Trump administration has yet to offer evidence to refute the charge that its foreign aid freeze will cause irreparable harm — or that it has fully considered the implications the pause could have on interests that rely on the aid.
Ali emphasized: “To the extent Defendants have continued the blanket suspension, they are ordered to immediately cease it.”
He did not find the administration in contempt.
The White House has not yet commented on the judge’s order.
Ali’s ruling comes as another federal judge cleared a path for Trump to begin firing thousands of foreign aid workers and throwing the future of the USAID and critical global humanitarian relief into chaos.
Washington, D.C., District Judge Carl Nichols, a Trump appointee, lifted his temporary restraining order that blocked the administration from removing all but a fraction of USAID staff and setting a 30-day deadline for global aid workers to move back to the United States.
He ruled that the government has “identified plausible harms that could ensue if its actions with respect to USAID are not permitted to resume.”
