SUPREME COURT SIDES WITH TRUMP
Justice Department lawyers told the Supreme Court that Ali’s injunction raised “a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers”.
“It would be self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind,” they 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.
Some legal experts have said Trump’s attempted clawback of billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated funds in this manner had no historical parallel.
The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 ruling on Sep 5 declined to halt Ali’s order, prompting the administration’s request to the Supreme Court.
In the foreign aid case, the Supreme Court on Sep 9 paused Ali’s order while it considered how to proceed.
The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to intervene to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court has sided with the administration in almost every case it has been asked to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.
In an earlier iteration of the foreign aid case, the court in a 5-4 vote in March declined to let the administration withhold payment of some US$2 billion to aid organisations for work they had already performed.
