A federal judge in Washington has ordered the Trump administration to halt all remnants of the spending freeze that officials ordered last week and then rolled back.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued a temporary restraining order Monday after expressing concern that the blanket freeze on federal spending may be lingering at some agencies despite two court orders to pause it during ongoing lawsuits.
AliKhan acted after some nonprofits reported that they continued to be hampered by the freeze and still couldn’t access promised funding, an obstacle she said appeared to be a direct result of a freeze the Office of Management and Budget in President Donald Trump’s White House ordered last week but officially rescinded three days later.
Various groups who receive federal grants reported continued difficulties with payments in recent days, despite AliKhan’s ruling last week, along with another from a federal judge in Rhode Island, blocking the White House from implementing the funding freeze while litigation is pending.
“Defendants act as if any continued freeze is merely a random coincidence that could not possibly have anything to do with their memorandum. In the court’s view, that explanation ignores both logic and fact,” AliKhan wrote in a 30-page order. She noted that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last week that the freeze would continue even as the OMB memo enacting it was withdrawn.
“It appears that OMB sought to overcome a judicially imposed obstacle without actually ceasing the challenged conduct. The court can think of few things more disingenuous,” wrote the judge, an appointee of President Joe Biden.
During a hearing earlier Monday, the Justice Department argued that AliKhan had no authority to continue blocking the spending freeze. DOJ attorney Daniel Schwei said federal agencies have authority to make their own decisions regarding spending that don’t depend on OMB’s order. It would be inappropriate for the judge to effectively “superintend” spending by the executive branch, Schwei said.
But AliKhan rejected that premise, saying some programs appeared to have been frozen solely because of the original freeze — with no evidence that any agency had made an independent decision.
AliKhan said the restraining order was warranted due to the “potentially catastrophic” harm that the funding halt had on organizations that provide direct assistance to vulnerable Americans.
“Each day that the pause continues to ripple across the country is an additional day that Americans are being denied access to programs that heal them, house them, and feed them,” she wrote.
AliKhan also rejected DOJ arguments that the existing block from the judge in Rhode Island was sufficient reason for her to stand aside.
The issue roiled Washington last week after OMB issued a memo directing federal agencies to put a hold on all grant and aid spending other than Medicare and Social Security. After an outcry, OMB withdrew the memo, but Leavitt’s statement hours later insisting the policy had not changed muddied the waters.