By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court paused on Tuesday a judge’s order that required Donald Trump’s administration to promptly take steps to spend billions in foreign aid that the Republican president has sought to claw back.
The court’s action, called an administrative stay, gave the justices additional time to consider the administration’s formal request to let it withhold some $4 billion authorized by Congress ahead of a September 30 deadline.
The stay was issued by Chief Justice John Roberts, who handles emergency filings arising in Washington. Roberts asked the aid groups that sued the administration to file a response to the administration’s request by Friday.
The money at issue in the case was intended by Congress for foreign aid, United Nations peacekeeping operations and democracy-promotion efforts overseas.
The administration said in court papers that the $4 billion of disputed foreign aid funding is “contrary to U.S. foreign policy,” reflecting Trump’s effort to scale back U.S. assistance abroad as part of his “America First” agenda. Trump has also largely dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development, the main U.S. foreign aid agency.
Congress budgeted billions of dollars in foreign aid last year, about $11 billion of which must be spent or obligated ahead of a deadline of September 30 – the last day of the U.S. government’s current fiscal year – lest it expire.
After being sued by aid groups that expected to compete for the funding, the administration said last month that it intended to spend $6.5 billion of the disputed funds. Trump also sought to block $4 billion in the funding through an unusual step called a “pocket rescission” that bypasses Congress.
Ali ruled on September 3 that the administration cannot simply choose to withhold the money, and that it must comply with appropriations laws unless Congress changes them.
Justice Department lawyers in a Monday filing to the Supreme Court said the judge’s injunction “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers.” Under the U.S. Constitution, the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches are assigned different powers.
“It would be self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind,” lawyers for the Justice Department wrote.
Trump budget director Russell Vought has argued that the president can withhold funds for 45 days after requesting a rescission, which would run out the clock until the end of the fiscal year. The White House said the tactic was last used in 1977.
Lauren Bateman, a lawyer for a group of plaintiffs, responding to the administration’s filing on Monday, said that the administration had asked the Supreme Court “to defend the illegal tactic of a ‘pocket rescission.’ “
“The administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to bless its attempt to unlawfully accumulate power,” Bateman said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 ruling on Friday declined to halt Ali’s order, prompting the administration’s request to the Supreme Court.
The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to intervene to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.
In an earlier iteration of the foreign aid funding case, the court in a 5-4 vote in March declined to let the administration withhold payment of some $2 billion to aid organizations for work they already performed for the government.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)
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