President Donald Trump's legal position this week has gone from bad to worse, as three judges consecutively issued rulings against him on major executive actions, over roughly 90 minutes, CNN reported Tuesday.
First, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, D.C. smacked down the Trump administration's attempt to ignore his order to unfreeze foreign aid through the U.S. Agency for International Development. Ali previously ordered that aid be released weeks before, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio and acting USAID director Peter Marocco had argued they already reviewed all the frozen grants and their suspension was legitimate. Ali's new ruling rejected their argument, again demanding the payments move forward.
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Then, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan, another D.C. jurist, issued a preliminary injunction against the Trump administration's pause on federal funding and grants.
“In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning. Defendants either wanted to pause up to $3 trillion in federal spending practically overnight, or they expected each federal agency to review every single one of its grants, loans, and funds for compliance in less than twenty-four hours. The breadth of that command is almost unfathomable,” she wrote, suspending the freeze indefinitely.
After that, yet another U.S. District Judge in Washington State, Jamal Whitehead, blocked Trump's moves to freeze refugee resettlement in the United States, proclaiming in his order that his “actions amount to an effective nullification of congressional will in establishing the nation’s refugee admissions program. While the president has substantial discretion to suspend refugee admissions, that authority is not limitless.”
All three of the judges in question were appointed by former President Joe Biden.
"Many of the cases are finally getting a more thorough review by judges who are mulling whether to issue preliminary injunctions to block the contested government action," reported Devan Cole for CNN. "Such a decision is often the final trial court-level ruling issued in cases before they’re appealed by the losing side."