SCOTUS Rejects Trump Bid to Halt Foreign Aid
A seemingly obvious ruling was nonetheless 5-4.
WaPo (“Divided Supreme Court says judge can force Trump administration to pay foreign aid“):
A divided Supreme Court on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court order on foreign aid funding, clearing the way for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development to restart nearly $2 billion in payments.
The 5-4 order directed the lower court to clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to global health groups with consideration of the “feasibility of any compliance timelines.”
The decision drew a sharp dissent from four conservative justices who said a District Court judge in D.C. probably lacks the power to compel the federal government to make such payments.
“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned,” wrote Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh.
A federal judge in D.C. had ordered the money to begin flowing last week, after the Trump administration appeared to flout an earlier ruling that said a 90-day freeze on all foreign aid was imposed too hastily and should be lifted for now.
But the government appealed the Feb. 26 deadline, saying it would take weeks longer for the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department to resume payments for work completed before Feb. 13.
Wednesday’sdecision is the first by the Supreme Court on President Donald Trump’s blitz of executive orders and firings in the opening weeks of his presidency. The administration is already facing more than 100 lawsuits challenging its actions in lower courts, so other rulings are sure to follow.
The justices turned aside arguments by acting solicitor general Sarah M. Harris, who called U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s deadline an “impossible order” since it gave officials only about 36 hours to comply. Harris also said the judge exceeded his authority, an argument the Trump administration has made repeatedly as the president seeks to significantly expand executive power.
“Ordering the United States to pay all pending requests under foreign-aid instruments on a timeline of the district court’s choosing—without regard to whether the requests are legitimate, or even due yet— intrudes on the President’s broad foreign-affairs powers and upends the systems the Executive Branch has established to disburse aid,” Harris wrote in a filing Monday.
The notion that the President can simply decide to shutter agencies or decline to spend money appropriated by Congress is wildly at odds with both the text and spirit of the Constitution. President Nixon was slapped down hard by the Court more than fifty years ago when he tried to cut spending by fiat (“impoundment”).
I suspect this will not be the last we hear of the matter.
And if a single district-court judge was originating the order, Alito would have a point.
I am stunned that he doesn’t understand that the monies were authorized by Congress.
This does not bode well for more serious decisions in the future.
A chunk of the Court already seems to be buying into Trump’s view of the federal government.
@Steven L. Taylor: Agreed in both counts. Alito has become a pure hack at this point.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Congres + a district court judge + five justices > a single district court judge.
He might not know Congress was involved at all, but he was there for the 5 justices bit.
@Kathy: Presumably a majority of a 3-judge appellate panel as well.
We will find out if the man Roberts crowned as King will obey the man who crowned him.
NARRATOR: The King did not, as it turns out, obey the vassal who crowned him and strangely enough, felt empowered to ignore him entirely.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Funny how he seemed unbothered by the action of single district court judges in the fifth circuit radically changing policy the last four years
@Steven L. Taylor:
“I am stunned that he doesn’t understand that the monies were authorized by Congress.”
He understands. He just doesn’t care.
This isn’t a jibe or snark. The important thing to understand about MAGAs is that they are not confused or mistaken, they are not stupid or reaching a poorly thought out conclusion.
They are the characters Hannah Arendt or Orwell spoke of, the people who will eagerly embrace any lie or absurd proposition and doggedly defend it no matter the damage to their reputations.
Their lying is the flex, the smirking recognition that they are bending reality.
And now we’ll see if the Trump administration complies. I suspect they’ll try partial compliance, delay, and obfuscation. Prompting more suits, court orders, and appeals. Trump’s going to prove a boon for full employment of lawyers.
Alito strikes me as an example of the fact that high IQ people are as prone as anyone else to intuitive thinking. He just knows the country needs a strong father unitary executive to protect it from the woke and socialist boogymen, so the Constitution must say so. And he’s very good at coming up with convoluted legal arguments to support his gut feelings. Also, of course, to maintain his livelihood.
However, in the quoted bit of his dissent, he seems to offer a purely consequentialist argument, not an originalist, or even legal, argument.
Justice Alito, probably.
@Chip Daniels:
To be clear, that was utter sarcasm.
@Steven L. Taylor:
A sign of our times that without an obvious signifier, sarcasm and reality are indistinguishable.
They all just sound like Trump now. With no object permanence, they crash into every situation and act like they’ve never experienced anything before. But regardless, are instant experts in whatever they’re talking about.
It’s like the only way Republicans have to express any social theory is via the consciousness of a guy who spent half his life watching television and having trouble with the ball-under-the-blanket experiment.
Senator Slotkin’s speech seems to have gone over fairly well. I haven’t seen anything about audience size. Perhaps my faulty memory, but it seems one of the few SOTU, or sorta SOTU, rebuttal speeches that wasn’t kind of a joke.
Now Secretary of State Little Marco’s 2013 wrestling match with his own water bottle remains a classic of the genre.
@Steven L. Taylor:
… Only whenever the GOP controls the Executive branch. They play by Calvin-ball rules.
@Chip Daniels: “Their lying is the flex, the smirking recognition that they are bending reality.” (emphasis added)
And it’s not new, by any means. As a George W. Bush aide once boasted to Ron Suskind: “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors… and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Man I have been utterly amazed at how Amy Barrett has been ruling. I thought for sure she was going to be a right wing religious nutcase but she’s been bucking the GOP lately on some important rulings.
Alito and Clarence are outright hacks.
I think people are being too optimistic here. I think it’s very likely that SCOTUS decides that the obligations the lower court judge finds are false. Remember, this is the same court that decided that POTUS is immune to all prosecutions over anything that he discusses with the DOJ. Anything! This is a court that has routinely supported the strong executive theory. Do I think they will find ways to make it look like they arent just giving Trump a blank check? Absolutely. Do I think that in the end they will provide a check on only the very most egregious behavior. Also absolutely.
Steve
It is astonishing that four justices are okay with the administration refusing to pay bills for work already done, which is a fair chunk of this money.
Is it “originalist” to not pay your bills? That seems new.
@Jen:
Originalism once was what originalists said it was.
Now it will be what the rapist says it is.
I dare Scalito, uncle Thomas, et al to prove me wrong.
@Matt: I suspect that at some point, “No more Barretts” will be the phrase, as “No more Souters” once was. It’s sad when I have to be relieved that one of the three justices that Trump appointed appear interested in following the Constitution. Not surprising, but sad.
@Winecoff46: In Frank Miller’s classic graphic novels that were made into a movie…
There’s a lot you can say about Mr. Miller — he’s a racist, a fascist, a bigot, an all around shithead, he went completely insane after 9/11* — but he’s a master storyteller, and he really says this more succinctly and more clearly than nearly anyone else. He got the Trump era, long before Trump waddled into politics.
*: Is DK2: The Dark Knight Strikes Back good? God no, it’s a complete mess. But I would hold it up to any other work of fiction exploring the impact of 9/11 on America. The incoherence and complete mess is a part of that reaction. Part 1 ends with Batman flying the Batplane into a skyscraper — scripted before 9/11, and he decided he was just going to go with it.
Well, the order this morning only applies payments for work completed before Feb 13. The issue is over timeliness of payments
There is a hearing before the judge on March 6 regarding future work suspended. This, to me, seems like where the real “constitutional crisis” might be if a district judge can direct US foreign policy expenditures.
@Matt:
Alito is a hack. Thomas is a wholly-owned subsidiary.
@Steven L. Taylor:
@James Joyner:
…I am stunned,” wrote Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. …
Personally, Luddite is of the opinion that perhaps introducing their Supremacies to the end of the cattle stunner that goes bang would be a positive learning experience. Especially since all 4 apparently slept through Constitutional Law 101.
ETA, ok, ok . Go ahead ahead and just use a taser.
@Chip Daniels: I saw your name often at another website that I didn’t bookmark. One day I closed some tabs and lost it. Could you give me the address of that site? It’s a never Trump Republicans place.
@Kathy:
After Alito’s Dobbs’ majority opinion I am now pretty sure that ‘Originalism’ means that a Justice may fabricate an original pretext upon which to justify his-or-her desired legal opinion. The Alito Dobbs’ opinion showed us that such a pretext need not be related to our Constitution.