A judge granted a pause on President Donald Trump’s memorandum that Democratic attorney generals argued sought to temporarily pause nearly all federal assistance for states, delivering the second legal blow to Trump’s administration over the memo this week.
President Donald Trump departs the White House, Friday, Jan. 31, 2025, in Washington, en route to ... [+]
Judge John McConnell said the 22 states that sued the Trump administration over the guidance successfully “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.”
The government tried to claim the matter of the funding pause was moot because the Office of Management and Budget rescinded the directive via a one-sentence memo, but McConnell said the “alleged rescission” was “in name-only and may have been issued simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts.”
The judge pointed to a post from Trump’s press secretary Karoline Leavitt on X—in which she said “the President's EO's on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented”—as evidence the directive was still in effect and the issue was not moot.
McConnell wrote in the ruling released Friday that while there are likely some “aspects of the pause that might be legal and appropriate” for Trump to take, “the Court must act … under the ‘worst case scenario’ because [of] the breadth and ambiguity” of Trump’s pause.
Under the temporary restraining order that was granted, Trump’s administration cannot “pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate” federal financial assistance to the states, and it cannot “impede the States’ access to such awards and obligations.”
The memo, issued by OMB earlier this week, ordered a pause in all federal assistance “including, but not limited to” grants related to diversity, foreign aid and “woke gender ideology,” and was designed so agencies could review whether funding was “consistent” with Trump’s policies.
But, the memo did not specify which grants and funding sources would and would not get cut off, causing chaos and concern among many federal workers and grant recipients.
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The directive from the OMB was first reported Monday, and by Tuesday states and nonprofit organizations had sued the government over it. Plaintiffs in the suit led by the National Council of Nonprofits argued the guidance to pause disbursement of funds would have a “devastating impact” on nonprofits that receive government grants and rely on them “to fulfill their missions, pay their employees, pay their rent—and, indeed, improve the day-to-day lives of the many people they work so hard to serve.” A U.S. district judge temporarily blocked the freeze from going into effect Tuesday as part of that lawsuit, but the pause is only set to last until Feb. 3. The temporary restraining order issued by McConnell will last until further order of the court.
The states listed as plaintiffs on the lawsuit were: New York, California, Illinois, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C.
“Make no mistake: this federal funding pause was implemented to inspire fear and chaos, and it was successful in that respect,” Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said in a statement after the ruling. “These tactics are intended to wear us down, but with each legal victory we reaffirm that these significant and unlawful disruptions won’t be tolerated, and will certainly be met with swift and immediate action now and in the future.”
Trump Administration Rescinds Grant Freeze Memo—Here’s Everything We Know (Forbes)
Judge Pauses Trump’s Plan To Freeze Federal Aid Spending (Forbes)