U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan said the federal government must tell agencies not to implement President Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze—after AliKhan last week granted a pause at the request of nonprofits suing over the directive, with Monday’s move marking the third time a judge has ruled against the freeze.
President Donald Trump arrives with Aleksander Barkov, left, and owner Vincent Viola to speak during ... [+]
The order, granted Monday afternoon, stated the federal government is prevented from implementing the directives outlined in a memo from the Office of Management and Budget last week, agencies directed to pause funding cannot follow the order and any funding on open awards that was paused must be disbursed.
The ruling is in response to a memo sent by OMB on Jan. 27 that directed federal agencies to “temporarily pause all activities related to [the] obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance,” including but not limited to funds that could be implicated by the executive orders Trump signed against “DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
On Jan. 28, several nonprofit organizations sued the OMB over the directive, alleging it violated the Administrative Procedure Act and that the guidance to pause disbursement of funding would have a “devastating impact” on nonprofits, and AliKhan granted a temporary pause on the order lasting through Monday, at which point she said there would be another hearing.
AliKhan found the nonprofits met the standard of showing irreparable harm, writing Monday that “each day that the pause continues to ripple across the country is an additional day that Americans are being denied access to programs that heal them, house them, and feed them.”
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“Plaintiffs allege that OMB’s funding freeze lacked any reasonable basis and failed to consider the disastrous effects it would have. Defendants, meanwhile, insist that ‘there is nothing irrational about a temporary pause in funding’ when it is done ‘to ensure compliance with the President’s priorities,’” AliKhan wrote in the ruling Monday. “But furthering the President’s wishes cannot be a blank check for OMB to do as it pleases.”
The acting director of the Office of Management and Budget, Matthew Vaeth, sent the memo out to federal agencies last Monday night, and it did not specify which grants would and wouldn’t get cut off, which led to chaos among federal agencies and nonprofit groups that receive federal funding and were unsure whether they would get the money they need to continue operations. Lawsuits were almost immediately filed in response to the memo, including the one being overseen by AliKhan that is led by the National Council of Nonprofits, and one in Rhode Island filed by 22 states and the District of Columbia. On Tuesday, minutes before the pause was set to take effect, AliKhan granted a brief administrative stay in the lawsuit brought by the nonprofits, which paused the freeze from taking effect until at least Monday. Days later in Rhode Island, Judge John McConnell granted a temporary restraining order preventing the freeze from taking effect. In his ruling, he said the 22 states that sued over the guidance “put forth sufficient evidence at this stage that they will likely suffer severe and irreparable harm if the Court denies their request” to stop Trump from freezing potentially $3 trillion of funds and said the actions in the memo could be found to “violate the Constitution.”
In both lawsuits, the Trump administration has tried to argue the guidance of the memo is moot because OMB issued another memo rescinding its guidance to pause funding. But AliKhan and McConnell, the Rhode Island judge overseeing the states’ case, pointed to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, from Trump’s press secretary that read: “This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze … the President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.” McConnell said in his Friday judgment the statement showed the rescission was “in name-only and may have been issued simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts.” Likewise, in AliKhan’s Monday ruling she wrote the rescission seemed to be OMB trying “to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct,” adding “The court can think of few things more disingenuous.”
Trump Pauses Federal Grants Starting Today—But Details Are Scarce. Here’s What We Know. (Forbes)
Judge Pauses Trump’s Plan To Freeze Federal Aid Spending (Forbes)
Judge Halts Trump’s Funding Freeze—Saying Alleged Rescission Was ‘In Name Only’ (Forbes)