Withholding of Foreign Aid Reaches Supreme Court Following Federal Judge’s Ruling
The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to keep billions of dollars in congressionally approved foreign aid frozen. This move escalates a long-running legal dispute over the administration’s authority to withhold funding that Congress has already approved.
The legal fight centers on nearly $5 billion in foreign aid that President Donald Trump announced on August 28 he would not spend.
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In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), the President invoked a disputed authority known as a “pocket rescission.”
This action involves a late-budget-year request to Congress not to spend approved money, a practice that, due to the timing, prevents the legislative body from acting on the request within the required 45-day window.
The administration’s appeal to the high court follows a ruling by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, who last week determined that the decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal. Judge Ali wrote that the law is “explicit that it is congressional action—not the President’s transmission of a special message—that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations.”
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A panel of federal appellate judges later declined to block Ali’s ruling, prompting the administration to turn to the Supreme Court.
Nonprofit organizations, which were the first to sue the government over the freeze, have argued that the withholding of funds violates federal law and has had a crippling effect on urgent, lifesaving programs abroad. The legal case has been making its way through the courts for months.
In a related development, Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that another $6.5 billion in foreign aid, which was also subject to the freeze, would be released and spent before the end of the fiscal year on September 30. The Supreme Court’s decision on the administration’s emergency request is still pending.
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