A federal appeals court handed the Trump administration a win on Wednesday, ruling that it can withhold billions of dollars in foreign aid.
Judges on the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit lifted a district court injunction requiring the government to deliver foreign assistance funds that Congress had appropriated. The 2-1 ruling said that aid groups that sued the Trump administration over its foreign aid freeze did not have standing to bring the suit. “The district court erred in granting that relief because the grantees lack a cause of action to press their claims,” Judge Karen L. Henderson wrote in the majority ruling. Henderson, appointed by President George H.W. Bush, was joined in the decision by Judge Gregory G. Katsas, a Trump appointee.
Henderson wrote that, under the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, only the comptroller general — the head of the Government Accountability Office, which is part of the legislative branch — could legally challenge the president’s withholding of funds.
The GAO has found that the Trump administration has broken the law by withholding funds authorized by Congress, but it has not filed suit to this point.
In a dissent, Judge Florence Y. Pan, a Biden appointee, said that the government had not challenged the district court’s finding that the president had no intention of spending the appropriated funds or the court’s conclusion that withholding the funds likely violated the constitution. “Instead, the government argues only that the grantees lack a statutory cause of action to force the President to obligate the funds in question,” Pan wrote. “Because that argument does not take issue with the central legal analysis that justified the preliminary injunction, our job is easy — we should affirm that ruling.”
Pan argued that the court ruling “derails” the constitutional system of checks and balances. “The court’s holding that the grantees have no constitutional cause of action is as startling as it is erroneous,” she wrote. “The majority holds that when the president refuses to spend funds appropriated by Congress based on policy disagreements, that is merely a statutory violation and raises no constitutional alarm bells.”
The administration’s victory may be temporary, as plaintiffs in the case reportedly said they would ask for a review by the full 15-judge D.C. Circuit court panel.