The move came after a federal appeals court formally halted an injunction that had forced the government to release funding approved by Congress.
The federal government on Aug. 29 withdrew an emergency request at the Supreme Court to give it control over billions of dollars in foreign aid after an appeals court cleared the way for the government to withhold the funding.
The case goes back to Jan. 20, when President Donald Trump issued Executive Order 14169 to freeze foreign aid spending for 90 days. Grant recipients and associations sued to free up the government funds, arguing that the president violated the federal Administrative Procedure Act and the Constitution.
The government had already won in a 2–1 ruling on Aug. 13 a challenge to the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, allowing it to freeze the funds. The panel found that the associations and grant recipients that sued to release the funds did not have valid legal grounds to bring a lawsuit in the case.
But as the panel did not issue what lawyers call a mandate, its ruling did not take effect immediately.
Instead, a Feb. 25 preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali that required the foreign aid funds appropriated by Congress to be spent remained in effect after Ali denied the government’s request to formally stay his injunction.
However, on Aug. 28, the full circuit court amended its opinion and directed the court’s clerk “to issue the mandate forthwith,” or immediately, effectively dismissing the government’s appeal to the Supreme Court.
This allows the government to withhold the appropriated foreign aid funding.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer had said in an Aug. 29 filing with the Supreme Court that the government “faced irreparable harm should the injunction remain in effect beyond September 2, when the government would have to take potentially irrevocable steps to obligate funds expiring on September 30.”
Subject to the injunction are tens of billions of dollars, some $12 billion of which would need to be spent by the State Department before Sept. 30, when they expire. The government warned of the “irreparable harm” that it would incur in a prior court filing.
