Chief Justice Roberts keeps in place Trump funding freeze that threatens billions in foreign aid
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
- Chief Justice Roberts temporarily upheld Trump’s freeze of nearly $5 billion in foreign aid pending Supreme Court review of the emergency appeal.
- Trump used a rarely employed “pocket rescission” authority to withhold funds approved by Congress, prompting a legal challenge over executive spending powers.
- A lower court had ruled the funding freeze probably illegal, but the high court’s temporary order suggests justices may reverse that decision.
WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John Roberts on Tuesday temporarily kept in place the Trump administration’s decision to freeze nearly $5 billion in foreign aid.
Roberts acted on the administration’s emergency appeal to the Supreme Court in a case involving billions of dollars in congressionally approved aid. President Trump said last month that he would not spend the money, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.
The high court order is temporary, though it suggests the justices will reverse a lower court ruling that withholding the funding was probably illegal. U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled last week that Congress would have to approve the decision to withhold the funding.
Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in a letter Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.
He used what’s known as a pocket rescission. That’s when a president submits a request to Congress toward the end of a current budget year to not spend the approved money. The late notice means Congress cannot act on the request in the required 45-day window and the money goes unspent.
The Trump administration has made deep reductions to foreign aid one of its hallmark policies, despite the relatively meager savings relative to the deficit and the possible damage to America’s reputation abroad as foreign populations lose access to food supplies and development programs. The administration turned to the high court after a panel of federal appellate judges declined to block Ali’s ruling.
Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that an additional $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze would be spent before the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30.
The case has been winding its way through the courts for months, and Ali said he understood that his ruling would not be the last word on the matter.
“This case raises questions of immense legal and practical importance, including whether there is any avenue to test the executive branch’s decision not to spend congressionally appropriated funds,” he wrote.
In August, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit threw out an earlier injunction Ali had issued to require that the money be spent. But the three-judge panel did not shut down the lawsuit.
After Trump issued his rescission notice, the plaintiffs returned to Ali’s court and the judge issued the order that’s now being challenged.
Sherman writes for the Associated Press.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
Senator Allen has put his money on fire mitigation and bringing stakeholders together in communities up and down the state to reduce their risk and stay insured. In this episode, Host Kate Cagle speaks with Allen about his plans.
The Hillside Strangler murders terrorized Los Angeles in the late 1970s. The killers were a pair of sadistic cousins. One confessed. The other was set to stand trial—until L.A. prosecutors flinched.
Modern LA earned its first smoggy nickname 450 years ago, as the “bay of smokes.” At the La Brea tar pits, we take a short walk through a long history with curator Regan Dunn, who explains how and why the first Angelenos would have set fires that filled the broad bowl of LA and foretold the curse of smog.
