US Supreme Court divided, but refuses to rap judge over Trump’s foreign aid freeze

A sharply divided Supreme Court on Wednesday, 5 March, rejected a Trump administration push to rebuke a federal judge who imposed a quick deadline to release billions of dollars in foreign aid.

By a 5-4 vote, the court told US District Judge Amir Ali to clarify his earlier order that required the Republican administration to release nearly USD 2 billion in aid for work that had already been done.

Justice Samuel Alito led four conservative justices in dissent, saying Ali lacks the authority to order the payments. Alito wrote that he is stunned the court is rewarding “an act of judicial hubris”.

The court's action leaves in place Ali's temporary restraining order that had paused the spending freeze. Ali is holding a hearing on Thursday, 6 March, to consider a more lasting pause.

The majority noted that the administration had not challenged Ali's initial order, only the deadline.

The court told Ali to “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines”.

The administration has argued that the situation has changed because it has replaced a blanket spending freeze with individualised determinations that led to the cancellation of 5,800 US Agency for International Development (USAID) contracts and another 4,100 state department grants totalling nearly USD 60 billion in aid.

Ali ordered the funding temporarily restored on 13 February, but nearly two weeks later, he found the government was giving no sign of complying and set a deadline to release payment for work already completed.

The administration appealed, calling Ali's order “incredibly intrusive and profoundly erroneous” and protesting the timeline to release the money.