The Supreme Court should deny the Trump administration’s application for a partial stay of a district court injunction that ordered the administration to unfreeze foreign assistance funding appropriated by Congress, according to an amicus brief CREW filed today on behalf of Representative Rosa DeLauro, ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee. 

On January 20, President Trump issued an executive order that directed agencies to freeze billions of dollars of foreign assistance funding. Several organizations sued the administration, challenging the legality of the freeze. On September 3, the District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction ordering the government to make available and obligate the funds at issue by September 30.

The Trump administration now has asked the Supreme Court to partially stay this injunction. The administration argues that, because the president has proposed many of the funds at issue for rescission under the Impoundment Control Act (ICA), it can withhold the time-limited funds through their date of expiration, effectively rescinding those amounts without congressional approval. On September 9, the Supreme Court paused the district court’s order to give the justices more time to consider the Trump administration’s request. 

As CREW’s amicus brief on behalf of Rep DeLauro explains, the Trump administration’s argument “that the government can use congressionally imposed time limits as a sword to unilaterally amend laws making appropriations under the ICA . . . defies the plain text of the ICA and purports to give Presidents the same line item veto power the Supreme Court definitively rejected as unconstitutional more than 25 years ago.” 

The ICA protects Congress’s power of the purse and does not give any president the authority to withhold funds through their expiration date. Given that Congress is actively negotiating annual appropriation acts for the upcoming fiscal year, the stakes are high. If the Supreme Court grants a partial stay, it could both lend unwarranted credibility to the Trump administration’s incorrect argument that the president can unilaterally rescind congressionally appropriated funding and disrupt ongoing negotiations. For all these reasons, the Supreme Court should deny the Trump administration’s application for a partial stay and allow the district court’s preliminary injunction requiring the obligation of these funds to take effect. 

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