The Trump administration has secured yet another victory at the appellate court level with a Wednesday order issued by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
One of the earliest controversial district court rulings against the administration came in the realm of USAID funding. Back in February, D.C. District Court Judge Amir Ali entered temporary restraining orders in two related cases challenging the administration's freezing of foreign aid funds that had previously been appropriated by Congress. He followed that up with orders compelling the administration to disburse roughly $2 billion in funding by a certain (and very tight) deadline.
The administration appealed those enforcement orders to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which dismissed the appeals for lack of jurisdiction. The administration then applied for a stay from the Supreme Court, but found no love there.
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Back at the district court, Judge Ali then entered preliminary injunctions in the cases in March, which the administration then appealed to the D.C. Circuit. As indicated, on Wednesday, the Circuit issued a ruling vacating those injunctions. It was a 2-1 decision, authored by Judge Karen Henderson (a Bush 41 appointee — yes, really; she's 81 years old) and joined by Judge Gregory Katsas (a Trump appointee). Judge Florence Pan (a Biden appointee) dissented from the ruling.
The majority opinion is relatively brief (just 33 pages, while the dissent clocks in at 47), and does a nice job of laying out the procedural history and the statutory lay of the land before diving into the meat of the ruling, which is summed up by Henderson here:
The district court erred in granting that relief because the grantees lack a cause of action to press their claims. They may not bring a freestanding constitutional claim if the underlying alleged violation and claimed authority are statutory. Nor do the grantees have a cause of action under the APA because APA review is precluded by the Impoundment Control Act (ICA). And the grantees may not reframe this fundamentally statutory dispute as an ultra vires claim either. Instead, the Comptroller General may bring suit as authorized by the ICA. Accordingly, we vacate the part of the district preliminary injunction involving impoundment.
Once she delves into the intricacies of the potential causes of action, the decision does get a tad "weedsy," as I like to say. But the long and short of it is this: The district court abused its discretion in issuing the preliminary injunctions because these plaintiffs aren't likely to succeed on the merits. This is because they don't really have a proper cause of action to bring a constitutional claim, and they can't bring a claim under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), because the Impoundment Control Act (ICA) provides a framework for the Comptroller General (the head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO)) — not individual plaintiffs — to sue and enforce the ICA.
Now, this isn't the end of the case(s). We can expect the plaintiffs to move for a rehearing en banc, and unlike my thoughts as to Judge Boasberg's contempt order being bounced by a D.C. Circuit panel last week, I've a sneaking suspicion the full court might overturn this panel's decision. And if it does (or doesn't), the case will undoubtedly be appealed to the Supreme Court. And we'll have to see how it ultimately shakes out. (And the case still hasn't been tried on the merits — this is just as to whether the preliminary injunction should have been issued.)
Still...this one counts as another win (for now) for the administration. I'll take it.
Editor's Note: Unelected federal judges are hijacking President Trump's agenda and insulting the will of the people
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