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| Judge Loren AliKahn (American Law Institute) |
Many Americans probably still are confused by circumstances surrounding Donald Trump's spending freeze, which wound up being blocked by two federal judges.
Is there any way to clear the muddy waters? We will give it a shot, with help from U.S. Judge Loren AliKahn (who issued the first restraining order on the Trump plan) and the reporting staff from Politico.
Here is an explainer we hope will shine much-needed light on the subject:
A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration's spending freeze, according to a joint report from Politico and Yahoo! News. Reporters Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein write:
A federal judge has halted President Donald Trump’s freeze on federal aid programs, ruling that the courts need more time to consider the potentially far-reaching ramifications of the order.
Minutes before the directive from Trump’s budget office was to take effect Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan blocked the Trump administration from implementing it for now.
AliKhan’s order will expire Feb. 3 at 5 p.m. The Trump administration cannot suspend disbursement of any congressionally appropriated funds until then. The judge described the move as a “brief administrative stay” intended to maintain the status quo while further litigation plays out.
“I think there is the specter of irreparable harm,” said AliKhan, an appointee of President Joe Biden.
The ruling is a win for nonprofit and public-health groups who filed a lawsuit earlier Tuesday challenging the broad spending freeze Trump’s budget office ordered overnight. Those groups said even a brief implementation of the freeze could cause devastating outcomes for people who rely on federal funds for services, as well as the workers who provide them.
The nonprofits also argued the order from the Office of Management and Budget intrudes on First Amendment rights by seeking to block funding for groups that engage in “DEI programs” or promote “Gender Ideology Extremism” — concepts that Trump targeted in executive orders he issued on the first day in office last week.
“They are going to lose funding in 10 minutes because they support transgender equality instead of supporting something that the administration finds more palatable,” said Jessica Morton, an attorney for the National Council of Nonprofits and other groups.
The response of the administration's legal team was nonsensical, at best:
During a short hearing held by videoconference, Justice Department attorney Daniel Schwei argued that the groups had failed to show that they needed an immediate halt to the order, which had been set to take effect at 5 p.m. Tuesday. He said additional guidance offered by the Trump administration should alleviate concerns about the OMB directive cutting off essential funding.
“They request sweeping relief … not tethered to any identified grant programs,” Schwei said. “It would be appropriate to allow these issues to be addressed on a more orderly time frame … I think it would be preemptive for the court to order relief just based on the suspicion that there might be some harm at some point.”
The lawsuit from the nonprofit and public-health groups is in Washington, D.C., federal court. Also on Tuesday, Democratic state attorneys general filed a separate federal lawsuit in Rhode Island challenging the spending freeze.
A separate article from the Associated Press and Yahoo! News described the chaos the Trump administration had unleashed across America. Chris Megerian writes:
Administration officials said the decision to halt loans and grants — a financial lifeline for local governments, schools and nonprofit organizations around the country — was necessary to ensure that spending complies with Trump’s recent blitz of executive orders. The Republican president wants to increase fossil fuel production, remove protections for transgender people and end diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
But a vaguely worded memo issued by the Office of Management and Budget, combined with incomplete answers from the White House throughout the day, left lawmakers, public officials and average Americans struggling to figure out what programs would be affected by the pause. Even temporary interruptions in funding could cause layoffs or delays in public services.
“This sort of came out of the blue,” said David Smith, a spokesperson for the Shawnee Mission School District in Kansas, one of countless districts that receive federal funding. Now they’re trying to figure out what it means “based on zero information.”
Judge AliKhan said in halting the freeze, “It seems like the federal government currently doesn’t actually know the full extent of the programs that are going to be subject to the pause.”
Get a load of this argument from Team Trump:
Justice Department attorney Daniel Schwei said the plaintiffs hadn’t identified anyone specifically who would lose funding right away if the pause does go into effect.
Trump administration officials said programs that provide direct assistance to Americans would not be affected, such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, student loans and food stamps. They also defended the funding pause, saying Trump was following through on his promise to turn Washington upside down if elected to a second term.
So that's what Trump is doing -- turning Washington upside down? What about the suffering his topsy-turvy "management" will cause in the rest of the country -- even in the seven swing states whose voters went for Trump and allowed him to put our country on the edge of ruin? I take the words above to be an admission that Trump is trying to be disruptive and distracting; he isn't even trying to govern. "Turning Washington upside down" does nothing to make America stronger or "great" and does nothing to make the lives of everyday Americans better. In my view, this statement is confirmation that Trump intentionally is not doing his job. I would say it is time for an investigation re: impeachment and possible criminality.
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