In blow to Trump, Supreme Court frees up billions in USAID money

WASHINGTON (CN) — In a loss for President Donald Trump, the Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to extend a pause on foreign aid funding.

The Supreme Court issued an apparent 5-4 ruling forcing the administration to comply with a federal judge’s order to restart funding disbursements for the U.S. Agency for International Development contractors.

Trump refused to restart billions of dollars in funding disbursements for USAID after abruptly halting foreign assistance in January. The president told the Supreme Court that he shouldn’t have to comply with a federal court’s order turning on funds under a broad executive authority argument.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a George W. Bush appointee, temporarily paused a midnight deadline last week to give the full court time to review the appeal.

The justices’ Wednesday morning order lifts that pause. However, they said the lower court should clarify the government’s payment obligations, considering the feasibility of any compliance timelines.

After the administration ignored his first order, U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali, a Joe Biden appointee, gave the administration a 36-hour deadline to send funds to contractors. Instead, Trump appealed Ali’s ruling, filing an 11th-hour appeal at the high court last week.

“The government cannot function — and the President cannot discharge his Article II responsibilities over foreign affairs — if a district court can appoint itself the claims-processor for the federal government and second-guess the executive branch’s determinations on pain of contempt proceedings,” Trump wrote in his emergency appeal.

Justice Samuel Alito, a George W. Bush appointee, dissented from the order, stating, “I am stunned.”

Alito called the majority’s ruling “a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers."

Justice Clarence Thomas, a George H.W. Bush appointee, and Trump appointees Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh joined Alito’s dissent.

Congress has already allocated the funds in question, and contractors have gone without pay for completed work while the Trump administration withholds payments.

Alito, however, argued that courts can’t impose liabilities that must be paid from public funds in the treasury. According to the dissenting justices, Trump had sovereign immunity preventing the lower court from ordering the administration to restart funds.

“A federal court has many tools to address a party’s supposed nonfeasance,” Alito wrote, “Self-aggrandizement of its jurisdiction is not one of them.”

Ali’s order is the second time a judge found Trump did not follow court orders and comes as some administration officials suggested that the White House ignore court orders it feels interfere with executive authority.

Trump said Ali’s temporary restraining order intruded on the prerogatives of the executive branch.

“The president’s power is at its apex — and the power of the judiciary is at its nadir — in matters of foreign affairs,” Trump wrote.

Nonprofits and private companies say the ongoing and wholesale pause of congressionally appropriated foreign assistance funding is causing severe harm — plunging contractors into financial turmoil and leaving those who rely on such programs to face starvation, disease and death.

“Respondents have had to furlough or lay off employees, and some are facing cancellation of credit lines, civil and regulatory actions for employment violations, evictions, insolvency, and even physical threats to personnel in conflict areas,” the contractors wrote in a brief to the court.

Officials inside USAID have warned that shutting down the agency would leave 1 million children untreated for acute malnutrition, up to 166,000 people would die from malaria and new cases of tuberculosis would go up by 30%, according to reporting from ProPublica. Officials also said 200,000 more children would be paralyzed by polio over the next decade.

The contractors who filed suit in the case before the Supreme Court only represent a small sampling of those who worked internationally on behalf of USAID. They said the court’s order confirmed that the administration could not violate the law.

“To stop needless suffering and death, the government must now comply with the order issued three weeks ago to lift its unlawful termination of federal assistance," Lauren Bateman, an attorney with Public Citizen Litigation Group and lead counsel in this case, said in a statement.

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