US judge extends block on Trump freeze of federal aid funding

A US district judge delivered a scorching opinion on Monday extending a temporary block on President Donald Trump's freeze on federal funding for aid programs.

Judge Loren AliKhan said the National Council of Nonprofits and others who brought the case had shown they would suffer "irreparable harm" if the federal aid freeze was allowed to take effect.

Trump triggered nationwide confusion last week with an order from the White House's Office of Management and Budget (OMB) ordering a freeze of trillions of dollars in federal loans, grants and other assistance.

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The move created an uproar and OMB issued a terse notification saying the freezing of aid order had been "rescinded."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced soon afterwards, however, that the spending freeze remained in place -- and only the memo from the budget office was rescinded, a move the judge described as "disingenuous."

AliKhan blocked the spending freeze last week until the conclusion of a court hearing in Washington on Monday and she issued a ruling shortly afterwards extending the pause.

"The declarations and evidence presented by Plaintiffs paint a stark picture of nationwide panic in the wake of the funding freeze," she wrote in a 30-page opinion.

"Organizations with every conceivable mission -- healthcare, scientific research, emergency shelters, and more -- were shut out of funding portals or denied critical resources beginning on January 28."

The judge, an appointee of Democratic President Joe Biden, said as much as $3 trillion in financial assistance was implicated by the freeze, "a breathtakingly large sum of money to suspend practically overnight."

OMB, she added, had "offered no rational explanation for why they needed to freeze all federal financial assistance -- with less than twenty-four-hours' notice."

"If Defendants intend to conduct an exhaustive review of what programs should or should not be funded, such a review could be conducted without depriving millions of Americans access to vital resources," she said.

"Rather than taking a measured approach to identify purportedly wasteful spending, Defendants cut the fuel supply to a vast, complicated, nationwide machine -- seemingly without any consideration for the consequences."

She also said the White House had overreached and "the appropriation of the government's resources is reserved for Congress, not the Executive Branch."

Many organizations are still waiting for funds to be disbursed, she said.

A district judge in Rhode Island last week also temporarily blocked the freeze on federal aid spending in a case brought by 22 states.