A federal judge in Washington, D.C., granted a preliminary injunction Tuesday against the Trump administration aimed at stopping the sweeping freeze to federal disbursements that has sown anger and anxiety across the country in the last month.
The National Council of Nonprofits and a collection of other groups sued the Office of Management and Budget in late January after the agency’s acting director at the time, Matthew Vaeth, issued a memo calling for a widespread pause on the flow of federal funds until the Trump administration could ensure the spending aligns with its priorities.
The injunction represents a longer-term fix that replaces a temporary restraining order while court proceedings continue. It applies nationwide.
A similar lawsuit filed in federal court in Rhode Island produced a similar temporary restraining order, but it only applies to money flowing to the plaintiffs, who are a collection of Democratic-leaning states.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan wrote that the Trump administration’s funding freeze was “irrational, imprudent and precipitated a nationwide crisis.”
“In the simplest terms, the freeze was ill-conceived from the beginning,” the judge went on. “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.”
The OMB’s initial memo went out Jan. 27. Another memo, issued Jan. 29, purported to rescind the order — although reports and evidence presented in court suggested that it was not successful.
AliKhan remained highly skeptical of the second memo, calling it “an empty gesture.”
“At best, it was meaningless,” she said.
The nonprofits have alleged that even a temporary pause in federal funding “would destroy their ability to provide [critical] services” and that some of their employees live paycheck to paycheck.
AliKhan noted the plaintiffs have said that “any additional pause in funding will have catastrophic or fatal consequences for their organizations.”