Washington — President Trump’s administration asked the Supreme Court on Monday to allow it to freeze billions of dollars in foreign aid funding, seeking its intervention in a clash over the president’s refusal to spend money allocated by Congress for foreign assistance programs.
The Trump administration is asking the high court to partially halt a lower court order that required it to spend more than $4 billion in aid by the end of September. Mr. Trump is attempting to claw back that money, which has already been approved by Congress, through a rarely used maneuver known as a pocket rescission.
The dispute also involves another $6.5 billion in foreign assistance, though the Justice Department has said it is taking steps to obligate those funds by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The legal fight quickly arrived at the Supreme Court after U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled last week that the executive branch had to spend the $4 billion in foreign aid funding that Congress had appropriated. The Justice Department asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to freeze that decision, though it declined to do so last Friday.
In seeking emergency relief from the Supreme Court, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the district court’s injunction “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.” He is asking the Supreme Court to pause the district court’s order only as to the $4 billion that Mr. Trump is attempting to rescind.
“The President can hardly speak with one voice in foreign affairs or in dealings with Congress when the district court is forcing the Executive Branch to advocate against its own objectives,” Sauer wrote.
Since returning to the White House, the Trump administration has canceled billions of dollars in contracts and grants that it says do not align with the president’s policy objectives. On the first day of his second term, the president signed an executive order that called for a 90-day pause in foreign aid and said administration officials would determine whether to continue or cease each foreign assistance program.
Congressional Democrats estimate that more than $425 billion in federal funding has been canceled or frozen by the president.
The latest dispute before the Supreme Court was brought by a group of nonprofits and businesses that receive money for foreign assistance projects. The plaintiffs argued that the 90-day freeze was an unconstitutional exercise of the president’s authority.
The case has already landed at the Supreme Court, though in an earlier stage in the proceedings. In early March, the high court split 5-4 in rejecting a bid from the president to keep $2 billion in foreign aid frozen while the case moved forward.
The case has progressed since then. Last month, a three-judge panel on the D.C. Circuit said that the nonprofits and businesses could not sue. The 2-1 panel wiped away an order from Ali that had prohibited the government from impounding congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds.
But the D.C. Circuit panel issued an amended opinion late last month that opened up an avenue for the nonprofits and businesses to seek relief on different legal grounds.
On the heels of that decision, Mr. Trump sent a letter to Congress proposing to rescind a total of $4.9 billion, which includes funding for the State Department, international development programs and the the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the president has moved to shutter.
The president’s plan is an attempt to roll back funding unilaterally and has not been done in nearly 50 years. One Republican has called the effort “unlawful” and said the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the power of the purse.
The plaintiffs in the case sought a new preliminary injunction. Last week, Ali found that the government has a statutory duty to spend the $4 billion that is subject to Mr. Trump’s rescission proposal. He ordered the Trump administration to spend the expiring funds approved by Congress for foreign assistance, unless Congress claws it back in accordance with the procedures laid out in federal law.
In seeking relief from the Supreme Court, Sauer, the solicitor general, said Ali’s injunction “puts the executive branch at war with itself” by requiring it to spend the same $4 billion that the president wants to claw back.
