A federal judge has blocked President Donald Trump’s shady attempt to claw back funds through a rare legal move called a pocket rescission, ordering the president to unfreeze billions of dollars of foreign aid.
U.S. District Court Judge Amir Ali ruled Wednesday that while the Trump administration retained “significant discretion” as to how the funds ought to be spent, it had no power over whether or not to spend the nearly $5 billion in funds that had already been allocated.
Last week, Trump wrote to Congress requesting back $4.9 billion in funding approved for international aid efforts, including $3.2 billion in development assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Congress then had 45 days to decide whether to approve Trump’s request, but the White House Office of Management and Budget asserted that it could freeze the funds until the fiscal year ended on September 30, ensuring the funds’ cancellation.
Trump had already bypassed Congress to dismantle USAID, and now he planned to do it again.
But the judge wrote that Congress would have to approve the rescission, because the law was “explicit that it is congressional action—not the President’s transmission of a special message—that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations.”
Ali couched his decision by saying that it would likely not be the final word in the case, and that “definitive higher court guidance now will be instructive.”
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