Feb. 26 (UPI) — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday night paused a lower court-imposed midnight deadline to restart $2 billion in foreign aid payments after the Trump administration paused 10,000 awards.
The Department of Justice filed an emergency appeal at the Supreme Court, bypassing the appeals court in the District of Columbia.
Roberts, who oversees cases arising in D.C., signed the order in halting the decision from a federal district judge issued Tuesday. In a one-paragraph order, Roberts wrote the case is stayed pending a further court order with responses due by noon Friday.
This is the first time the high court has acted on President Donald Trump’s spending cuts.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris wrote the deadline “moved the goalposts.” She said “it not tailored to any actual payment deadlines associated with respondents’ invoices or drawn-down requests, or anyone else’s. And it has thrown what should be an orderly review by the government into chaos,” she wrote.
Trump, in an executive order on his first day in office on Jan. 20, ordered the agencies to pause nearly all foreign aid spending for 90 days as the contracts are reviewed. Foreign aid represented 1% of the federal budget.
Besides wanting to slash aid, Trump is seeking to shutter USAID, formed in the 1960s, with assistance through the State Department.
In a filing earlier Wednesday, the Justice Department lawyers said the U.S. Department of State cannot meet a court-ordered 11:59 p.m. EST Wednesday deadline to adhere to a federal judge’s decision to pay what it and the Agency for International Development owes.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, appointed by President Joe Bien, had set the Wednesday deadline after aid groups and businesses argued that the State Department and USAID had not been complying with his Feb. 13 order that immediately blocked a blanket freeze on foreign aid.
The Trump administration filed a motion to halt Ali’s order, along with an appeal to a higher court — the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Ali denied the motion and the three-panel circuit after the DOJ appealed the case to the Supreme Court said the decision could not be appealed.
“USAID is in the process of processing termination letters with the goal to reach substantial completion within the next 24-48 hours,” the administration said in a court document, which was filed Wednesday afternoon. “As a result, no USAID or State obligations remain in a suspended or paused state.”
Despite the termination of 9,900 contracts, about one-quarter of the deals, $57 billion, remain, according to a court filing on Wednesday.
Nearly 90% of the USAID awards, 5,800, were terminated and more than 500 USAID awards were retained, according to the filing. Also, approximately 4,100 state awards were terminated, and about 2,700 state awards were retained.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also is serving as the USAID administrator, had “individually reviewed” all previously terminated programs, and concluded doing so was in the country’s national interest.
The total ceiling value of the retained awards is approximately $57 billion.
Within hours, organizations began receiving termination emails from Adam Cox, the agency’s deputy director in the Office of Acquisition and Assistance, Devec reported.
In 2023, USAID and the State Department obligated $61 billion to 11,000 projects worldwide, according to federal data.
The government estimated it would have to free about $2 billion to be in compliance. It said it expects to be able to free up roughly $15 million by the end of the day
The motion said “regardless whether this Court stays the district court’s order, agency leadership has determined that the ordered payments ‘cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the district court,'” their filing said.
Ali repeatedly asked lawyers to clarify whether any funds had been released since his Feb. 13 directive. The government’s lawyer was unable to point to any sign that the aid money was flowing. Ali then issued a new deadline for the government to pay any outstanding invoices or drawdown requests that were due before his original Feb. 13 order by midnight on Thursday.
The plaintiffs have blasted the Trump administration.
“For 12 days, Defendants have stonewalled and abjectly defied the district court’s unambiguous temporary restraining order,” the plaintiffs said. “It makes no sense that the State Department and USAID — which have had no trouble timely disbursing payments for decades before the unlawful funding freeze — would now be unable to do so, but for Defendants’ deliberate efforts to halt payments.”
“Defendants have erected numerous new barriers to compliance at every turn. This conduct cannot be explained as anything other than willful defiance of the Court’s orders,” the plaintiffs said in another filing.
At least some money for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, had been eliminated, including some previously deemed essential and exempted from the aid freeze, aid workers and USAID officials told The New York Times.
This week, between 1,600 and 2,000 of the 10,000 staff members, including those in foreign countries, were terminated from the agency. All remaining direct hires were placed on administrative leave.
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