A federal appeals court on Wednesday allowed the Trump administration to block billions of dollars in foreign aid funds.
The legislative branch’s Government Accountability Office (GAO) must bring challenges to administration decisions to withhold funding, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals found in a 2-1 decision.
“Radical left dark-money groups have been using the court system to seize control of U.S. foreign policy,” an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) spokesperson said in a statement to the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Today’s decision stops these private groups from maliciously interfering with the President’s ability to spend responsibly and administer foreign aid in a lawful manner and in alignment with his America First policies.”
The majority blocked an injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in March that required the administration to restore the frozen funds. A group of grant recipients initially sued in February over President Donald Trump’s day-one executive order directing the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to pause foreign aid funding.
“The district court erred in granting that relief because the grantees lack a cause of action to press their claims,” Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, wrote in the majority opinion.
“Because the grantees lack a cause of action, we need not address on the merits whether the government violated the Constitution by infringing on the Congress’s spending power through alleged violations of the 2024 Appropriations Act, the ICA, and the Anti-Deficiency Act,” Henderson wrote.
The executive branch cannot disobey “duly enacted statutes,” Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, wrote in a dissent.
“Yet that is what the majority enables today,” she wrote. “The majority opinion thus misconstrues the separation-of-powers claim brought by the grantees, misapplies precedent, and allows Executive Branch officials to evade judicial review of constitutionally impermissible actions.”
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