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Trump says injunction barring spending freeze was limited

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 08 Mar 2025 15:41:12 +0000

FILE — President Donald Trump throws pens used to sign executive orders to the crowd during an indoor Presidential Inauguration parade event in Washington, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025 (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File).

The Trump administration and a collection of nonprofits are fiercely arguing over the scope of a weeks-old court order that pumped the brakes on the controversial government spending freeze.

On Jan. 28, the National Council of Nonprofits (NCN) filed one of the first lawsuits against the defunding scheme. That same day, U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, a Joe Biden appointee, issued a stay on the freeze — which she later extended into a temporary restraining order. On Feb. 25, the judge issued a preliminary injunction.

On March 4, the plaintiffs accused the government of effectively violating the terms of the injunction by way of a “cramped interpretation” that has frozen some $3.6 billion in anti-homelessness funds that were previously “awarded to various grant recipients.”

On Friday, the U.S. Department of Justice fired back — accusing the plaintiffs of trying to squeeze “broader” relief out of the court.

“Plaintiffs’ requested relief highlights that they are seeking to use this Court as a superintendent over Executive Branch decisions relating to the obligation of funding,” the government’s response argues.

The disputed language bars agencies “from implementing, giving effect to, or reinstating under a different name the directives in” the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) memorandum “with respect to the disbursement of Federal funds under all open awards.”

To hear the plaintiffs tell it, this language means the government has to fund grants that have been awarded but not yet paid.

The government, however, citing the original temporary restraining order, says the court defined “open awards” in a more limited fashion as “ones that have already been approved and partially disbursed.”

The injunction itself does not purport to define “open awards.” So, the nonprofits are asking AliKhan what she meant by that phrase.

“[Defendants] interpret the Court’s references to ‘all open awards’ in the preliminary injunction order to mean not ‘all’ open awards but instead only those open awards that have been ‘partially disbursed,”” the motion to clarify reads. “Plaintiffs respectfully submit that Defendants’ approach does not accord with either the letter or the reasoning of the Court’s preliminary injunction order and decision.”

The nonprofits offered up their preferred definition. They asked the court to define the term as “all awards that have been awarded — i.e., that the recipient has been notified of the decision to award the grant, loan, or other financial assistance or the award has otherwise been made public,” according to the motion to clarify.

The Trump administration insists there is no confusion to ferret out.

“The Court’s orders were unambiguous, and Plaintiffs did not object to Defendants’ use of this definition in their written notice regarding the Court’s temporary restraining order,” the motion in opposition reads. “The Court should reject Plaintiffs’ motion, because the Court’s order was not vague or ambiguous.”

The government also says the nonprofits have already relied on the definition in the temporary restraining order — and can’t change it now.

From the DOJ’s motion, at length:

In fact, Plaintiffs represented that the Court’s temporary restraining order provided them the relief they sought, and stated that their preliminary injunction motion was only requesting relief within the same bounds. Yet now, weeks after Defendant first filed a written notice containing this language, Plaintiffs seek to contest this definition of “open awards,” on the rationale that the Court’s own reference to open awards “does not appear to be what the Court was actually saying.”

The nonprofits say the “narrow interpretation” advanced by the government would result in substantial harm to its member groups.

“[T]he harms from Defendants’ irrational Freeze Order would be especially severe for those who had already been awarded and were counting on receiving (or may even have begun to draw on) federal financial assistance,” the motion to clarify reads. “That reasonable reliance on being able to access financial assistance that has already been awarded, and the harms to recipients from Defendants’ sudden halt to such assistance, exist regardless of whether disbursement on an open award has yet begun.”

The nonprofits go on to say they believe the injunction does, in fact, cover such awards but acknowledge the court may not have understood its own order to deal with such funding. So, in the alternative, the plaintiffs “ask that the Court address such awards now.”

The government counters that the enjoined behavior is all about “disbursements” and argues the plaintiffs want to fashion a new order that encompasses the “obligation” of funding.

“Plaintiffs’ attempt to do so only underscores the fact that they seek to use this lawsuit to turn this Court into a superintendent over countless Executive Branch decisions made by non-defendant agencies relating to federal funding,” the motion in opposition reads. “This would include superintending individual agency decisions such as the signing of grant agreements or the determination of whether applicants have satisfied conditions imposed on their awards.”

The nonprofits now have until March 10 to file a final motion on this issue.

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Trump accused of violating order nixing spending freeze

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 08 Feb 2025 04:45:38 +0000

President Donald Trump gestures as he is escorted by Col. Angela F. Ochoa, Commander, 89th Airlift Wing, obstructed, as he walks from Marine One before boarding Air Force One, Friday, Feb. 7, 2025, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Luis M. Alvarez).

The Trump administration is openly violating a federal court order that barred the government from enforcing a controversial spending freeze, according to an emergency motion filed late Friday.

On Jan. 31, U.S. District Judge John McConnell, a Barack Obama appointee, issued a temporary restraining order that found the spending freeze both unconstitutional and in violation of a federal law that blocks government action deemed “arbitrary and capricious.”

Now, the several plaintiff states, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, are back in the same Rhode Island federal court — telling the judge his order is simply being ignored.

“The sands have only continued to shift since January 31,” the emergency motion to enforce the restraining order reads. “As explained below, there has been an ever-changing kaleidoscope of federal financial assistance that has been suspended, deleted, in transit, under review, and more since entry of the Order.”

On Jan. 27, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a memo in an attempt to make good on a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump, which outlined spending priorities. Within hours, the federal government lurched into chaos.

In response to the specter of frozen entitlement systems, downed websites, and a general state of panic across administrative agencies, the administration quickly performed a volte-face and rescinded the OMB memo with a terse second memo that also directed employees to follow up with agency lawyers if they had any questions.

Upon backtracking, face-saving measures ensued.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt cast doubt on the second OMB memo in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

“This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze,” Leavitt wrote. “It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo. Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction. The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.”

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Unconstitutional and illegal’: Trump, Rubio, Musk ‘systematically dismantled’ USAID in unlawful usurping of legislative authority, lawsuit claims

In his 13-page restraining order, McConnell cited Leavitt’s post and other factors as evidence of “the government’s transparent efforts to evade” oversight by the federal court system.

In no uncertain terms, the judge barred the Trump administration from “reissuing, adopting, implementing, or otherwise giving effect to the OMB Directive under any other name or title or through any other Defendants (or agency supervised, administered, or controlled by any Defendant).”

Since then, a week has passed.

Now, the plaintiffs say there is very little to show that the government has complied with the order. In fact, they allege the opposite.

“Plaintiff States and entities within the Plaintiff States continue to be denied access to federal funds,” the motion reads. “These denials continue to cause immediate irreparable harm.”

The motion frames the issue as all but existential.

“Jobs, lives, and the social fabric of life in the Plaintiff States are at risk from the disruptions and uncertainty that have continued now a full week after entry of the Order,” the filing argues. “As this Court noted, executive action that is ‘in name-only and may have’ proceeded ‘simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts’ weighs in favor of temporary but decisive action. Unfortunately, such action is once again necessary on an urgent basis.”

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘Few things more disingenuous’: Judge slams Trump administration for ‘thinly veiled attempt’ to avoid court over federal funding freeze

The administration has since come up with new ways to try and freeze funding, the motion argues.

“Defendants have — for the first time this week — taken the position that certain federal funds, including federal financial assistance under the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act, is outside the scope of the Court’s Order, a position contradicted by the plain text of the Order and the notice Defendants previously filed with the Court explaining their view of the scope of the Order,” the motion goes on.

To hear the plaintiffs tell it, none of this is excusable even though “it is imaginable that a certain amount of machinery” would need to be recalibrated to get things back on track since funding was paused.

A great deal of the consternation has to do with time.

“Defendants contemplated an all-of-government ‘pause’ on federal funding could be implemented in the less than 24 hours between when the OMB Directive issued and when it took effect,” the motion goes on. “Yet, as to a number of funding sources that provide critical services in Plaintiffs’ States, the situation has not changed at all nearly a week after the Court’s Order.”

In other words, New York and the other states complain that while the funding freeze was implemented in short order, the government is making something of a leisurely effort to unplug the dams.

“[T]he Court should enforce the clear and unambiguous text of its temporary restraining order and order Defendants to immediately restore funds until the preliminary injunction motion can be heard and decided,” the motion argues. “The Court should further Order that Defendants immediately take every step necessary to effectuate the Order, including clearing any administrative, operational, or technical hurdles to implementation.”

In a separate, 78-page filing submitted to the court simultaneously, the plaintiffs also ask the court to issue a preliminary injunction. An injunction would have the same substantive impact as a temporary restraining order but would last until the case is resolved or until a reviewing court overturns McConnell’s ruling.

“The fact that executive agencies appear to have restored some funding only after being provided with notice of the Court’s [temporary restraining order] is only further evidence that the Funding Freeze is very much live and that a Court order remains necessary to provide Plaintiff States with relief from that unlawful action,” the second motion reads.

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Judge torches Trump admin with order nixing spending freeze

homesafetytechpros — Sat, 01 Feb 2025 05:18:10 +0000

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from Miami to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

A federal judge in Rhode Island has barred the Trump administration from enforcing its murky and controversial federal spending freeze by issuing a temporary restraining order.

Earlier this week, U.S. District Judge John McConnell voiced his intention to likely rule in favor of the restraining order during a hearing. On Friday, the court issued a 13-page order formalizing that opinion.

“The Court finds that the record now before it substantiates the likelihood of a successful claim that the Executive’s actions violate the Constitution and statutes of the United States,” McConnell writes.

The Office of Management and Budget issued the memo in question on Tuesday — an attempt to make good on a series of executive orders issued by President Donald Trump, which outlined spending priorities. Within hours, the federal government lurched into chaos.

That quick rescission, the government argued, rendered all of the multiple lawsuits filed against the spending freeze moot.

Not so, said the judge.

“The Defendants now claim that this matter is moot because it rescinded the OMB Directive,” the Friday order reads. “But the evidence shows that the alleged rescission of the OMB Directive was in name-only and may have been issued simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts. The substantive effect of the directive carries on.”

In his comments from the bench, McConnell took note of an X post by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt in which she cast doubt on the efficacy of the second OMB memo to do away with the first memo.

In Friday’s order, the judge cited the press secretary’s post, and an Environmental Protection Agency email sent Wednesday purporting to implement the original OMB directive by pausing all disbursements as evidence that the memo lives on.

“Based on the Press Secretary’s unequivocal statement and the continued actions of Executive agencies, the Court finds that the policies in the OMB Directive that the States challenge here are still in full force and effect, and thus the issues presented in the States’ TRO motion are not moot,” the order reads.

The judge also expressed severe doubt as to the upshot of the administration’s actions after the initial kerfuffle.

From the court’s order, at length:

In response to this lawsuit and the Court’s stay order, they say they have rescinded Memo M-25-13 and ceased the allegedly unlawful conduct. But basic principles of voluntary cessation make clear that alone is not enough to thwart this Court’s jurisdiction (let alone evade its administrative stay). Particularly in light of the government’s shifting actions and explanations with respect to the funding freeze, Plaintiffs can have no assurances that the government will not simply resume implementing and enforcing the challenged policy going forward — assuming they fully stopped at all.

Instead, McConnell says, the Trump administration is just playing a shell game with the law, policy, and the OMB memos — citing the Leavitt post as proof of an attempt at “manipulation.”

“It has said that, notwithstanding the Court’s stay and the purported ‘rescission,’ the freeze of Federal funds announced in Memo M-25-13 remains in effect, and the only purpose of the ‘rescission’ was ‘to end any confusion’ about the Court’s order,” the judge goes on. “The Court should not brook the government’s transparent efforts to evade the force and effect of its stay order or thwart its jurisdiction to resolve this continuing dispute.”

In issuing the formal temporary restraining order, the court mused that the state plaintiffs are likely to prevail on their claims as the litigation moves through the court system.

Key to the judge’s ruling is a finding that the Trump administration’s spending freeze constitutes both a violation of the U.S. Constitution and longstanding federal law, namely, the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), which often blocks an administrative agency’s action when it can be shown that what the government is doing is “arbitrary and capricious.”

“Congress appropriated many of these funds, and the Executive’s refusal to disburse them is contrary to congressional intent and directive and thus arbitrary and capricious,” the order reads. “Congress has not given the Executive limitless power to broadly and indefinitely pause all funds that it has expressly directed to specific recipients and purposes and therefore the Executive’s actions violate the separation of powers.”

More Law&Crime coverage: ‘No jurisdiction’: DOJ says Trump’s executive orders ‘are not subject to challenge’ in lawsuit over funding freeze on federal aid

While this is the second time McConnell has ruled against the would-be government spending freeze, McConnell himself is at least the second federal judge to do so.

On Wednesday morning, Washington, D.C.-based U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued an administrative stay blocking the policy, a less intrusive manner of pushing back on the administration’s plans.

In the Rhode Island case, New York State is the lead plaintiff. After McConnell issued his ruling, New York Attorney General Letitia James, a Democrat, issued a press release hailing the court’s decision.

“This administration’s reckless plan to block federal funding has already caused chaos, confusion, and conflict throughout our country,” James said in a statement. “In the short time since this policy was announced, families have been cut off from childcare services, essential Medicaid funds were disrupted, and critical law enforcement efforts were put in jeopardy. I led a coalition of attorneys general in suing to stop this cruel policy, and today we won a court order to stop it. The President cannot unilaterally halt congressional spending commitments. I will continue to fight against these illegal cuts and protect essential services that New Yorkers and millions of Americans across the country depend on.”

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Man convicted of murdering wife after spending months on run

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 11:07:53 +0000

Jonathan Bates, left, was arrested in Georgia more than a year after he skipped a court hearing for allegedly murdering his wife Cynde Bates, right, back in 2017. (Jonathan Bates: Dawson County Sheriff’s Office; Cynde Bates: Facebook)

A Georgia jury this week convicted a man who skipped a court hearing and spent more than a year on the run avoiding charges that he murdered his wife in front of their young children in 2017.

Jonathan Bates was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife Cynde Bates, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WSB report. He also was convicted of manslaughter, aggravated assault and cruelty to children.

As Law&Crime previously reported, the Dawson Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Marshals Service arrested Bates in April. A bench warrant has been out for Bates’ arrest ever since he failed to show up to a court hearing in October 2022, records show.

Bates is accused of killing his wife Cynde Bates, 28, at their home in Dallas, Georgia, in May 2017. According to his indictment, he allegedly pushed her, causing her to fall and hit her head on a love seat. The incident allegedly happened in front of the couple’s children, ages 4 and 7.

Cynde Bates was later declared brain-dead and died at a hospital, court documents say.

Jonathan Bates allegedly told a police officer that he pushed her when she tried to hug him. She had previously accused him of domestic violence and told family members she was planning to file for divorce.

Cops arrested him, but in June 2017, a judge said there was not enough evidence for the case to move forward on the murder charges and only bound over the case for simple battery. The decision outraged Cynthia Bates’ family members.

“Her kids are lost without her,” Bates’ sister Sandy Dement told Atlanta’s WSB. “Her family is lost without her. We don’t get to talk to her anymore.”

WSB reported the judge had ties to Jonathan Bates’ family. He later recused himself.

A grand jury later indicted Jonathan Bates, reinstating the murder charges. He posted a $16,500 bond, which led to him skipping the October 2022 court hearing. His lawyers claim his wife’s death was an accident.

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ATF accused of fraud and wasteful spending

homesafetytechpros — Thu, 28 Dec 2023 01:12:46 +0000

ATF accused of fraud and wasteful spending – CBS News

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A CBS News investigation uncovered allegations of fraud, waste and abuse at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. A whistleblower said he lost his job after he flagged the alleged violations to his superiors. Catherine Herridge reports.

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