Donald Trump waves as he departs a campaign event at Central Wisconsin Airport, Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in Mosinee, Wis. (AP Photo/Morry Gash).
A coalition of foreign aid groups implored a federal appellate court to reject the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court’s order directing the government to unfreeze hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved funding by midnight on Wednesday, arguing that the appeal amounts to nothing more than a “stalling tactic.”
“After flouting the district court’s temporary restraining order for a full twelve days in letter and in spirit — requiring the district court to not once, not twice, but three times order compliance — Defendants bring this premature appeal in a last-ditch effort to evade the order of an Article III court,” plaintiffs wrote in the 33-page opposition filing. “This Court should swiftly reject Defendants’ latest stalling tactic, deny their stay motion, and dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction.”
Litigation in the highly-watched case has moved at lightning speed over the last 24 hours, beginning with an emergency hearing held Tuesday morning before U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali after plaintiffs presented the court with evidence that the administration had failed to abide by his temporary restraining order (TRO) prohibiting the implementation of the across-the-board freeze.
During those proceedings, Ali lambasted the government’s attorney for saying he was “not in a position to answer” whether any of the funds covered by the court’s order had been unfrozen
A frustrated Ali concluded the hearing with a series of onerous directions to enforce compliance with the temporary restraining order, instructing the administration to unfreeze funds for contract payments on work completed before Feb. 13, 2025, by 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday.
The administration immediately filed a petition with the Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington seeking a short-term administrative stay on Ali’s order as well as a stay pending appeal. The administration asserted that it would be impossible for the government to abide by the directive within the allotted time frame, claiming that it could not pay out “nearly $2 billion in taxpayer dollars within 36 hours” unless it were to disregard its own payment-integrity systems.
Wednesday morning’s emergency motion from the government further asserted that even if the appeals court declines to halt Ali’s order, government leaders had already determined that the ordered payments “cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the district court.”
Plaintiffs responded Wednesday afternoon, arguing that Ali’s temporary restraining order is generally not appealable and that the government’s funding freeze was unlawfully arbitrary and capricious.
According to the plaintiff’s filing, the defendants “have abjectly defied the court’s temporary restraining order” and have taken “no action whatsoever” to comply with the court’s order to “restore the status quo as it existed before Defendants’ blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated funds.” It was only after Ali imposed a specific deadline on the release of funds that the Trump administration claimed for the first time that compliance with the court’s order was not possible, the plaintiffs said.
“For twelve days, Defendants have stonewalled and abjectly defied the district court’s unambiguous temporary restraining order,” plaintiffs wrote. “Now that the court has ordered compliance by a date certain, Defendants for the first time on appeal assert that compliance will not be possible for weeks to come. That assertion — which Defendants had every opportunity to make before the district court, but did not — simply beggars belief. This is not a question of payment volume or velocity. Defendants have disbursed essentially no funds since the district court ordered them to lift the unlawful funding freeze.”
The plaintiffs further contend that any alleged “impediments” to dispersing the funds are entirely “of the government’s own making” as they’ve employed a “ready, fire, aim” tactic to dismantle foreign-assistance programs that’s left nothing but chaos in its wake.
“At bottom, the government is not above the law, and the Court should not countenance the utter disregard of an Article III court’s orders,” plaintiffs argued. “The appeal should be dismissed and motion to stay denied.”
Also on Wednesday afternoon, Ali rejected the government’s request that his order be stayed pending the appeal, noting the government took 12 days before notifying the court it was “not possible” to comply with the order “apparently without taking any meaningful steps to unfreeze the funds.”
