A federal judge in Washington, D.C., set a Monday deadline for the Trump administration to release millions of dollars in foreign aid payments to U.S. Agency for International Development contractors and nonprofits who challenged President Donald Trump's executive order freezing nearly all such funds.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday in a 5-4 decision ruled against the administration's appeal of an order by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Joe Biden appointee, that the payments, which reportedly total $2 billion, resume.
Ali said the Trump administration must release the payments by 6 p.m. Monday to pay the plaintiffs all the money they are entitled to on invoices and similar requests initiated before Feb. 13, Politico reported Thursday. Contractors and grantees who are not parties to the litigation are not subject to the Monday deadline, so the money they are owed will likely remain frozen for now.
Ali's earlier order imposed a Feb. 26 deadline for the State Department to disburse the money owed to contractors and grant recipients who run aid programs abroad. But the deadline passed while the administration's appeal was pending, and the Supreme Court sent the case back to Ali with instructions to "clarify" the government's obligations.
Department of Justice attorneys said in a court filing Friday that State Department officials worked overnight Wednesday to approve about $70 million in payments to the plaintiffs. It's not known how much money the administration will be required to disburse by Monday, but people involved in the litigation told Politico it appears to be at least several hundred million dollars.
Ali said the $70 million the State Department approved gave him confidence that it could distribute the rest of the money to the plaintiffs by working at a similar pace over the next four days.
"The government's made a good showing by getting that," Ali said, according to Politico. "I do appreciate the government's taking action on that front."
DOJ attorney Indraneel Sur said it might be difficult for agencies to execute the payments over the weekend when many banks are closed, according to Politico, but Ali said he didn't think that would be a problem because the most recent batch of payments was approved overnight.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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