Donald Trump and Marco Rubio appear at a campaign rally in Allentown, Pennsylvania on Oct. 29, 2024 (Today/YouTube).
A pair of nonprofit groups suing the Trump administration over their foreign aid grants being frozen urged a federal judge in Washington, D.C., to hold Marco Rubio and Peter Marocco in civil contempt, accusing the secretary of state and the director of the Office of Foreign Assistance of intentionally defying a court order halting the funding freeze.
“This Court should not brook such brazen defiance of the express terms of its order,” the 17-page motion filed on Wednesday stated.
The nonprofits — AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and Journalism Development Network — earlier this month filed a lawsuit in response to President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20, executive order placing a blanket 90-day pause on federal foreign aid and subsequent dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Plaintiffs argued that the executive order “illegally and unconscionably” halted the work “related to nearly every United States foreign assistance mission” which allegedly exceeds the president’s constitutional authority and violates his duty under the Take Care Clause of the Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali last week issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting the government from “suspending, pausing or otherwise preventing the obligation or disbursement of appropriated foreign-assistance funds” which had been approved before Trump took office last month. The defendants were instructed to “take all steps necessary to effectuate” the order. Ali clarified that his ruling did not prohibit the administration from “enforcing the terms of” existing contracts or grants.
In accordance with the court’s order, Justice Department attorneys on Tuesday filed a status report claiming that the State Department and USAID had performed an analysis of thousands of contracts and grants.
“Thus far, that analysis has confirmed that at least substantially all of the terminations, suspensions, and stop-work orders issued on USAID contracts, grants, and cooperative agreements were allowed by the terms of those instruments or terms implicitly incorporated into those instruments,” the filing stated. “USAID has not yet identified a termination, suspension, or stopwork order issued on a USAID contract, grant, or cooperative agreement that was not allowed by the terms of those instruments or terms implicitly incorporated into those instruments,”
Plaintiffs responded the following day by calling the government’s assertion “remarkable” and in “brazen defiance” of the court’s “unambiguous order.”
“Defendants suggest that they are in compliance with this Court’s order because they have — in the last five days — conducted an internal review of the thousands of grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements issued by the State Department and USAID, and determined that the en masse suspensions, stop-work orders, and terminations were consistent with the terms of every grant, contract, and cooperative agreement,” attorneys for the plaintiffs wrote. “This assertion strains credulity.”
The defendants’ claim is also “contradicted” by accounts from inside the government, which plaintiffs say prove that the defendants actions lack a “reasonable basis.”
For example, a USAID officer responded to an inquiry form the plaintiffs stating that the agency “has not provided guidance” about the court order and said the funding suspension “still remains in effect.”
Another agency contracting officer signed a statement saying she had “‘not personally seen any evidence that a thorough, case-by-case analysis”” had taken place with regard to the suspension of funds or stop work orders issued by USAID.”
“[I]tis preposterous to suggest that Defendants were able, between 9:46 pm on February 13 when this Court issued its TRO and 11:32 pm on February 18, to make individualized determinations as to thousands of suspended and terminated grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements,” the filings states.
Ali ordered the defendants to respond to the filing by 1 p.m. on Thursday.
