Former WA attorney general: Supreme Court ruling may pose greater challenges for Trump administration

A sharply divided Supreme Court on Wednesday reinstated a lower-court order for the Trump administration to release frozen foreign aid, but it was not clear how quickly money would start flowing.

By a 5-4 vote, the court rejected an emergency appeal from the Republican administration, while also telling U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to clarify his earlier order that required the quick release of nearly $2 billion in aid for work that had already been done.

Although the outcome is a short-term loss for President Donald Trump’s administration, the nonprofit groups and businesses that sued are still waiting for the money they say they are owed. One of the organizations last week was forced to lay off 110 employees as a result, according to court papers.

Why does this ruling stand out?

Former Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna spoke on the impact of the ruling.

“This is notable because it’s one of the first cases to reach the Supreme Court involving a challenge to a Trump executive order,” he told “Seattle’s Morning News” on KIRO Newsradio Wednesday. “It’s interesting because it was a 5–4 ruling that essentially turned down the Trump administration’s challenge to the District Court, which was trying to force the administration to start releasing foreign aid payments it was contractually obligated to provide.”

McKenna noted Justice Amy Coney Barrett and Chief Justice Roberts sided with the three liberal justices and didn’t explain their reasoning. However, he said the four conservative justices who dissented — Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh — were quite vocal.

“Justice Alito focused on the question of how much power a federal District Court has to order the federal government to release money already authorized for foreign aid,” McKenna explained.

The ruling might have come as a bit of a surprise to the White House.

“This could signal more difficulty for the Trump administration than they might have expected,” McKenna said. “Still, there are so many executive orders and so many legal challenges that I doubt we’ll see 5–4 rulings against the Trump administration every time.”

Justice Samuel Alito led four conservative justices in dissent, saying Ali lacks the authority to order the payments. Alito wrote that he is stunned the court is rewarding “an act of judicial hubris and imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers.”

“Justice Alito is asking whether a District Court judge can essentially override the executive’s prerogative regarding spending,” McKenna explained. “The executive branch executes the laws, and the Trump administration has tried to downplay what they’re doing, saying they just need time to review all these grants.”

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The issue at hand

McKenna added that during Trump’s speech to Congress Tuesday night, the president highlighted various examples of questionable overseas spending. However, that runs into the fact that Congress has already decided to allocate the money.

“So at what point can the administration refuse to carry out Congress’s wishes once funds have been authorized, appropriated and committed?” McKenna asked. “The president does have significant influence over future budgets as Congress debates spending bills, but can the Trump administration simply say, ‘No, we’re not going to spend money that’s already authorized?’ And can a District Court force them to proceed if they refuse? That’s the issue at hand.”

The court’s action leaves in place Ali’s temporary restraining order that had paused the spending freeze. Ali is holding a hearing Thursday to consider a more lasting pause.

The majority noted that the administration had not challenged Ali’s initial order, only the deadline, which in any event passed last week.

The court told Ali to “clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines.”

Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, two conservatives, joined the three liberal justices to form a majority.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh joined Alito’s dissent.

The Trump administration has argued that the situation has changed because it has replaced a blanket spending freeze with individualized determinations that led to the cancellation of 5,800 U.S. Agency for International Development contracts and another 4,100 State Department grants totaling nearly $60 billion in aid.

The federal government froze foreign aid after an executive order from Trump targeting what he called wasteful programs that do not correspond to his foreign policy goals.

The lawsuit that followed claimed that the pause breaks federal law and has shut down funding for even the most urgent life-saving programs abroad.

Ali ordered the funding temporarily restored on Feb. 13, but nearly two weeks later he found the government was giving no sign of complying and set a deadline to release payment for work already completed.

The administration appealed, calling Ali’s order “incredibly intrusive and profoundly erroneous” and protesting the timeline to release the money.

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Contributing: Mark Sherman, The Associated Press; Julia Dallas, MyNorthwest; Charlie Harger, KIRO Newsradio