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.
