Federal judges have blocked President Donald Trump’s attempts to freeze trillions in federal grants and loans, halt billions in foreign assistance and dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development.
But in each case, the administration has said it still has legal authority to do at least some of what it wants, prompting judges and those challenging Trump’s actions to accuse him of failing to comply.
Legal experts said the administration’s aggressive maneuvers have approached the red line of openly flouting court orders, as Trump and his top aides and advisers
assert vast presidential powers.
The most dramatic example came Thursday. U.S. District Court Judge Amir H. Ali ordered the Trump administration to comply with a temporary restraining order (TRO) lifting its 90-day pause on foreign aid. He stopped short of saying Trump officials were in contempt of his ruling as the plaintiffs in the case had wanted.
“The TRO does not permit Defendants to simply search for and invoke new legal authorities as a post-hoc rationalization for the enjoined agency action,” Ali wrote.
On Tuesday, attorneys for the government said agencies could keep a hold on much of the funding despite Ali’s order, based on statutes and regulations that exist separately from Trump’s executive directive. The government said Ali’s order was “silent” on those other powers and vowed to continue suspension of aid unless the judge clarified his ruling.
Legal experts and a former federal judge said doing so despite a court order was extraordinary and troubling. David Super, a Georgetown University law professor, said the administration was “one step short of outright defiance” of a federal judge.
“This response is quite consistent with what I am seeing across many of the challenges to the new administration’s sweeping actions: They insist that injunctions relate only to one source of legal authority and then manufacture another to keep doing what they have been ordered not to do,” Super wrote in an email.
He pointed to an episode this month, when U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island ruled that the administration had violated the “plain text” of his order lifting a temporary freeze on trillions of dollars in federal grants and loans.
In the USAID funding case, the administration said it had “worked diligently” to comply with Ali’s decision and had released $250 million in foreign aid this week, a fraction of the overall pot of assistance.
The assertions drew a furious response from the health organizations that brought the suit. They wrote in their motion to hold Trump officials in contempt that the hold on funding to combat diseases such as HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, and provide cash assistance to foreign governments, had caused deaths and “irreparable harm” for millions around the world.
The government “makes the remarkable assertion that Defendants have reviewed thousands of affected State Department and USAID grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements, and concludes that — despite this Court’s unambiguous order — terminating nearly all foreign assistance funding was legal,” the organizations wrote. “This Court should not brook such brazen defiance of the express terms of its order.”
The filing included a declaration from a USAID officer who said the Trump administration’s moves to oust agency employees also made it impossible to comply with Ali’s order to restart the foreign aid.
“Without USAID Foreign Service Officers managing the many steps required, from budget, to contracting, to financial support, none of the Agency’s overseas programs will be effectively restarted under the [temporary restraining order],” the employee identified as “Jessica Doe” said.
The government again denied violating the ruling Thursday, saying Ali’s order “clearly and unambiguously authorizes Defendants to enforce their rights under the terms of contracts and grants, including by terminating them.”
The judge’s order blocked Trump’s effort to pause the aid and a separate State Department move that stopped nearly all current and new funding for foreign assistance.
Trump said the aid was not aligned with American interests and values. Ali, an appointee of President Joe Biden, ruled that the pause was “arbitrary and capricious” and not a rational precursor to reviewing the programs.
In the Rhode Island case, McConnell accused the administration of violating his order after nearly two dozen Democratic state attorneys general told him millions in funding for clean energy and transportation projects was still being impounded by the Trump administration.
The Justice Department responded that it had worked “in good faith” to comply with McConnell’s temporary restraining order but believed that some funding was exempt from the order and could still be frozen because it had been paused by a separate action by the Office of Management and Budget.
McConnell, an appointee of President Barack Obama, rejected that idea, writing that his order was “clear and unambiguous, and there are no impediments to the Defendants’ compliance.”
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols, a Trump appointee from his first term in office, questioned whether the administration was meeting the terms of a different temporary restraining order that prohibits an administration plan to immediately place overseas USAID workers on administrative leave.
Such a move could threaten the workers’ safety because many are deployed in unstable regions, Nichols said when blocking the effort.
Peter Marocco, the head of USAID, said in a sworn statement Feb. 10 that those stationed abroad would be given the choice to remain at their posts and could keep existing benefits even if they were placed on leave. But Marocco told the court four days later that any USAID employee who fails to leave a post would no longer officially be considered to be serving overseas and could lose access to benefits.
Nichols called the situation a “mess” during a hearing Wednesday and said Marocco’s shifting statements seemed to violate the “crystal-clear” understanding of how overseas staff should be handled. Nichols, who like Ali is a judge for the U.S. District Court in D.C., is weighing whether to extend his restraining order.
Nancy Gertner, a senior lecturer on law at Harvard University and former federal judge, said attempts to skirt temporary restraining orders are unusual because such orders in general last only a couple of weeks. After that, the administration gets a fresh chance to make its case as judges weigh whether to issue preliminary injunctions against executive orders.
“It’s particularly troubling that someone says they can’t wait out 14 days,” Gertner said. “If you don’t like the order, you oppose it at the preliminary injunction phase, and then you appeal. You don’t thumb your nose at the courts in the interim.”
Jonathan H. Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University, said presidents have regularly sought workarounds when judges restrict their actions.
“I’d be careful about characterizing stuff as outright defiance as opposed to aggressive or clever efforts to get around the limits imposed by a judicial order,” Adler said. “Government officials often try to do that.”
As an example, Adler pointed to the Biden administration
formulating a new student-loan-forgiveness plan after the Supreme Court ruled that Biden’s initial initiative did not pass legal muster. Conservatives said Biden was exceeding his legal authority.
But Super, the Georgetown professor, noted that the Supreme Court rejected Biden’s initial plan based on the legal authority that the president had cited to support it.
“The court had no occasion to say that all student loan forgiveness was unlawful,” Super wrote in his email. Biden “therefore did not violate any court order when he issued a new student loan forgiveness plan (and duly obeyed court orders against that plan when they came down).”
Peter M. Shane, a distinguished scholar in residence at the New York University School of Law, said Trump has frequently tested judges’ rulings but often pulls back before violating them.
“His technique in private litigation is, ‘How close to the line can I get?’” Shane said. “Let’s see what happens in the next round in court.”
The Trump administration, which has been on the losing end of most of the early legal battles over its executive orders, has chafed at judges imposing limits on the government’s efforts, with Vice President JD Vance and Trump aide Elon Musk
issuing controversial calls to defy court orders.
Trump’s top advocate at the Supreme Court also vented frustration in filings this week that asked the justices
to clear the way for the president to fire the leader of an independent agency that investigates whistleblower reports.
Acting solicitor general Sarah M. Harris said the court should make clear that the president can immediately appeal court orders that “usurp core Article II powers,” a reference to the part of the Constitution that vests power in the president. Temporary orders restraining the administration’s initiatives are “not blank checks for district courts to stop any and all presidential actions for up to a month at a time,” Harris wrote.
Shane said he sees the Trump court filings as part of an effort by the president to amass authority. The administration has pushed an aggressive version of a conservative philosophy called the unitary executive theory, which posits that the executive has total control over policy and firing decisions.
On Tuesday, Trump
issued an executive order challenging the independence of agencies that handle trade, communications and financial regulations and have long been insulated from the political influence of the executive. Trump has also asserted he has the right to impound funds, a key power the Constitution says is the prerogative of Congress. He and his aides have fired inspectors general and prosecutors who worked on his criminal cases.
Trump wrote on social media over the weekend that “
He who saves his Country does not violate any Law.”
“The president wants to push a view of constitutional authority where he gets the authority for how funds are spent, for how government functions are structured, for how subordinate officials behave,” Shane said. “And he wants to be able to do that without being checked by congressional oversight or judicial review.”
