Politics
JUST IN: Supreme Court Issues Stunning Ruling Against Trump, Alito Scorches Majority
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to overturn a lower court’s decision to unfreeze federal spending contracts at the U.S. Agency for International Development, angering conservatives who accused two conservative justices of siding against President Donald Trump.
In a split 5-4 decision, the high court rejected Trump’s request to keep billions of dollars frozen while the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency works to audit the payments to USAID contractors for waste, fraud, and abuse. Administration officials have previously promised that the payments will be made to companies who performed work for the embattled agency.
However, justices did not say when the controversial funds must be released, leaving the Trump administration free to continue wrangling over due dates in lower courts.
The order was unsigned, but four conservative justices dissented: Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Samuel Alito. That put five justices in the majority: Chief Justice John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Since a deadline to unfreeze the spending had already passed, the majority wrote, a lower court must “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order,” according to a copy of the decision obtained by CNN.
Alito, writing the dissent, said he was “stunned” by the majority opinion, calling it “a most unfortunate misstep that rewards an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”
“A federal court has many tools to address a party’s supposed nonfeasance. Self-aggrandizement of its jurisdiction is not one of them,” he wrote.
Elsewhere, the Bush appointee acknowledges a well-founded “frustration with the Governor,” and that aid contractors raised “serious concerns about nonpayment for completed work.” However, refusing to lift a lower court’s order to unfreeze the funds immediately “is, quite simply, too extreme a response.”
“A federal court,” he suggested, “has many tools to address a party’s supposed nonfeasance. Self-aggrandizement of its jurisdiction is not one of them.”
Steve Vladeck, CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said that the ruling merely paves the way for lower courts to determine the timeline for an eventual release of the funds.
“The unsigned order does not actually require the Trump administration to immediately make up to $2 billion in foreign aid payments; it merely clears the way for the district court to compel those payments, presumably if it is more specific about the contracts that have to be honored,” Vladeck said. “The fact that four justices nevertheless dissented – vigorously – from such a decision is a sign that the Court is going to be divided, perhaps along these exact lines, in many of the more impactful Trump-related cases that are already on their way.”
No statement has yet been made by the White House, but the issue is sure to be raised when Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt holds a briefing at 1 p.m. EST on Wednesday.
