The Trump administration is continuing to battle in court to preserve its Federal grant and loan funding freeze, requesting that a U.S. appeals court stay, pending appeal, a temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a Federal district court that halted the freeze effort last week.
The administration’s appeal follows a ruling made by a Federal court judge in Rhode Island that found the administration is defying the court’s order to halt the funding freeze effort.
John McConnell, Jr., chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island, determined during a hearing on Monday that the Trump administration likely violated the Constitution when it attempted to block trillions in Federal funding through a memo sent from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) on Jan. 27.
The memo, rescinded by OMB after only two days, aimed to defund Federal programs grant and loan programs that don’t align with Trump’s policy agenda.
Following a suit filed by the attorneys generals of 22 states and the District of Columbia, McConnell issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) on the funding freeze. A new motion filed on Feb. 7 by the same states made the case that the Trump administration was violating the TRO by holding up grant funding administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
In his order issued on Feb. 10, the judge in Rhode said that despite the Department of Justice’s (DoJ) arguments that the administration was trying to “root out fraud” regarding HHS and EPA grants, the administration was acting in defiance of the court’s order.
“The Defendants received notice of the TRO, the Order is clear and unambiguous, and there are no impediments to the Defendants’ compliance with the Order,” wrote McConnell. “The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country.”
In response to McConnell’s order on Monday, DoJ lawyers asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in Boston to stay the decision by the district court judge in Rhode Island, arguing that the district court overstepped the power of the court system, and that the case became moot when OMB rescinded its funding freeze memo.
McConnell had previously determined that the issue was not moot after contradictory statements were issued by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt who insisted that “the President’s EO’s [executive order] on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented,” after the memo was withdrawn in late January.
“Barring the government from ensuring that, where legally permitted, agency funding decisions are consistent with those policies is a direct affront to the will of the people and an intolerable intrusion on the prerogatives of the Executive Branch,” reads the Trump administration’s appeal, which added that McConnell’s order presents an “especially stark separation-of-powers.”
Lawyers for DoJ also claimed that states who filed the suit did not prove they “will suffer irreparable harm” if the TRO is stayed pending its appeal.
“They have not established the need for the type of sweeping relief entered by this Court, effectively turning the Court into a referee over every single funding decision made by eleven different agencies,” wrote DoJ.
In their motion filed to enforce the TRO, Democratic attorneys generals warned that without Federal funding, significant harm would occur. Several funding recipients were still unable to access funds following the issuing of the TRO which included health-related entities that were conducting research on dementia care and working to prevent the global spread of HIV.
“As long as this Administration continues to break the law, we will continue our fight to uphold it,” said Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha in a statement. “These lingering funding pauses are not coincidental. So let me be as crystal clear as Judge McConnell’s order: we’re not interested in playing these games, especially when it comes to funding programs that Americans rely on to survive and thrive.”
