WASHINGTON – The sharply divided Supreme Court on Wednesday refused to push the Trump administration to blame federal judges for placing swift deadlines to free billions of dollars in foreign aid.
With a 5-4 vote, the court told District Judge Amir Ali to clarify his previous order calling for the Republican administration to release nearly $2 billion in aid for work already done.
Judge Samuel Alito said Ali had no authority to order payments and led four conservative justice in dissent. Alito wrote that he was stunned, and that the court would reward him for “rewarding “the haunting act of judicial hub.”
The court case remains on Ali's temporary restraining order, which suspended the freeze on spending, and Ali held a hearing Thursday to consider a more permanent suspension.
The majority said the administration had not challenged Ali's initial order, only a deadline.
The court told Ali “We will make it clear what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, taking full consideration of the feasibility of the timeline of compliance.”
The administration claims that things have changed as the government led to cancellations for 5,800 US international development contracts and replaced by a freeze wrapped in separate decisions that would provide a total of $600 billion in aid.
Ali ordered the funds temporarily restored on February 13, but nearly two weeks later he noticed that the government had given no indication of compliance and had set a deadline to release payments for work that had already been completed.
The administration appealed, calling Ali's order “incredibly intrusive and deeply wrong,” and protested the timeline to free the money.
