A federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to stop disobeying his order to unfreeze grants by the federal government.
Judge John McConnell's order demands that President Donald Trump and his administration immediately continue paying for what the administration has frozen for being waste, fraud, and abuse.
McConnell, no relation to the Republican senator, was nominated by former President Barack Obama and brought to the federal bench in May 2011.
"The defendants issued a broad, categorical, all-encompassing directive freezing federal funding," McConnell's response to his initial temporary restraining order (TRO) read Monday. "The plain language of the TRO entered in this case prohibits all categorical pauses or freezes in obligations or disbursements based on the OMB Directive or based on the President's 2025 Executive Orders."
McConnell's ruling responded to a complaint from Democrat-governed states Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the district of Washington, D.C.
McConnell ruled the pause is unconstitutional unless evidence of fraud is presented to justify the pauses in grants.
"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 wrote.
"The Defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud. But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud.
"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."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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