‘This state of affairs cannot be allowed to persist for one more day,’ attorneys for the DOJ wrote.
The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Tuesday asked a Boston-based appeals court to place a hold on a federal judge’s decision that barred the Trump administration from freezing federal grants, loans, and other financial assistance.
In court papers submitted with the First U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday, the DOJ accused Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John McConnell of engaging in “intolerable judicial overreach” when he ruled that the administration had defied a prior ruling issued on Jan. 31 when it continued to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding.
“This state of affairs cannot be allowed to persist for one more day,” the DOJ lawyers wrote on Monday, asking the appeals court to issue an administrative stay to stop McConnell’s order. “A stay pending appeal is warranted.”
They further argued that the judge handed down “an extraordinary and unprecedented assertion of power by a single district court judge to superintend and control the Executive Branch’s spending of federal funds, in clear violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers” clause.
DOJ attorneys then said the appeals court, which is also based in Boston, “should stay the orders under review pending disposition of this appeal, and should enter an immediate administrative stay of the orders until the motion for stay pending appeal is resolved.”
Earlier on Monday, McConnell granted a motion for enforcement that ordered the Trump administration to restore funding that was frozen last month and to end any pause in federal funding.
“The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds,” McConnell said in his five-page order. “The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country. These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the TRO (temporary restraining order).”
His ruling was in response to a legal challenge that was filed by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and one from the District of Columbia, led by New York Attorney General Letitia James.
