The federal judge overseeing the lawsuit seeking to save USAID from the DOGE buzzsaw made an interesting dodge in his decision yesterday imposing a temporary restraining order on the Trump administration. Federal District Court Judge Amir H. Ali, a Biden judge so left-wing that he was confirmed only by a 50-49 vote, did the bidding of the plaintiffs and ordered funding to be resumed on USAID contracts that were in force on the last day Biden was president. After ordering funding to resume, he adds this:
It is further hereby ORDERED that nothing in this order shall prohibit the Restrained Defendants from enforcing the terms of contracts or grants.
What this means is that if the grant has a “cancellation for the convenience of the government” clause, USAID’s new management can go ahead and cancel the grant once they’ve informed the court what they are doing.
🚨🚨🚨BREAKING: Court enters TRO barring Trump from freezing federal grant funding unless allowed by grant! An absolutely ridiculous order because it is a "comply with the law injunction" and also alternative mechanism to enforce so APA doesn't provide claim. 1/ https://t.co/SqkaGl0y8t pic.twitter.com/9kRilAbgbO
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) February 14, 2025
The final result was a tough-sounding TRO that ensures Judge Ali gets progressive plaudits and invitations to the best dinner parties but tacitly acknowledges that the chance of it surviving scrutiny by the Supreme Court (I would say the appeals court but the DC Circuit is so infested with TDS that it will go along with anything that it thinks will hurt Trump) approaches zero.
Interestingly, something very similar happened in the case of Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s ruling that the Trump administration could not pause federal payments. If you recall, when the highly conflicted judge (Federal Judge Hearing Trump Spending Freeze Called Him a ‘Tyrant,’ Has Ties to NGO Getting Federal Cash – RedState) first entered a TRO in the case, he basically took on the role of deciding all spending for the country; see NEW: Federal Judge Makes Ruling Against Trump Admin That Might As Well Be a ‘Soft Coup’ – RedState. He even threatened Trump and other administration members with criminal contempt charges…he didn’t mention how he planned on circumventing the whole pardon power thing, but when you aren’t practicing law and are just playing for the cheap seats, you don’t have to worry about that.
When the Trump administration went to the First Circuit, appealing the intrusiveness of McConnell’s order, they didn’t set it aside, but they did send it back with an interesting directive to the judge. […]
— Read More: redstate.com
