Federal judge orders Trump admin to comply with previous order to lift foreign aid freeze

A federal judge on Thursday ordered Trump administration officials to comply with his previous order to temporarily lift a freeze on nearly all foreign aid, temporarily restoring it to programs worldwide. 

In his order, Judge Amir H. Ali, a Biden appointee, said Trump administration officials had used his Feb. 13 order to temporarily lift the freeze on foreign aid to instead “come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension” of funding. 

Despite the judge’s order to the contrary, USAID Deputy Secretary Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee, and other top officials had “continued their blanket suspension of funds,” Ali said.

Still, the Washington, D.C. district court judge declined a request by nonprofit groups doing business with the U.S. Agency for International Development to find Trump administration officials in contempt of his order.

TRUMP’S DOGE STAYS ON TRACK AFTER PAIR OF FEDERAL JUDGE RULINGS

Ali’s ruling comes in a lawsuit by the nonprofit groups challenging the Trump administration’s month-old cutoff of foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department, which shut down $60 billion in annual aid and development programs overseas almost overnight.

Even after Ali’s order, USAID staffers and contractors say the State Department and USAID still have not restored payments, even on hundreds of millions of dollars already owed by the government.

Marocco and other administration officials defended the nonpayment in written arguments to the judge this week. They contended that they could lawfully stop or terminate payments under thousands of contracts without violating the judge’s order.

The Trump administration says it is reviewing all State Department and USAID foreign assistance programs on a case-by-case basis to see which ones meet the Trump administration’s agenda.

TRUMP’S DOGE STAYS ON TRACK AFTER PAIR OF FEDERAL JUDGE RULINGS

Aid organizations, current and former USAID staffers in interviews and court affidavits, say the funding freeze and deep Trump administration purges of USAID staffers have brought U.S. foreign assistance globally to a halt, forced thousands of layoffs and is driving government partners to financial collapse.

Led by SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s efforts at the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the department has been what Musk characterizes as a crusade to cut government spending and downside the federal workforce. 

DOGE so far claims to have saved some $55 billion via cuts to USAID, the Department of Education and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. But many of DOGE’s cost-cutting efforts have brought legal challenges.