‘As a student of English’: Judge mocks Trump admin attempt to wriggle away from language in spending freeze memo, maintains court-ordered pause

Left to right: Donald Trump, Loren AliKhan.

Left: President Donald Trump speaks at the Future Investment Initiative (FII) Institute summit in Miami Beach, Fla., Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2025 (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell). Right: Loren AliKhan, then-Deputy Solicitor General for the District of Columbia, speaks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on ‘Universal Injunction Challenges’ in Washington on Tuesday, Feb. 25, 2020 (Photo by Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call via AP Images).

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., maintained a court-ordered pause on the government spending freeze on Thursday despite insistent claims from the Trump administration that the controversial defunding program had been rendered dead letter.

“In a sense, it doesn’t really matter,” an attorney for the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) told U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan during a hearing on a motion for a preliminary injunction.

The court was not convinced by the government’s arguments in favor of staying the temporary restraining order previously issued in the case. At the same time, the judge did not give much indication as to which way she was leaning in terms of the further relief requested by the plaintiff National Council of Nonprofits (NCN).

Arguments between the parties were variations on a familiar theme.

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