'Unlawful' suspension of USAID funding probably violated Constitution, judge says
Source: Washington Post
Updated March 11, 2025 at 9:41 a.m. EDT
A U.S. district judge ruled Monday that the Trump administration must pay nearly $2 billion in foreign assistance owed to its humanitarian partners around the world, saying the administration probably violated separation of powers by “unlawfully impounding” the congressionally appropriated money.
U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali in a ruling blocked the administration from withholding payment of foreign aid funds authorized by Congress, which has caused delays in lifesaving food and medicine in impoverished areas around the world. But he found that the administration could move forward with an effort to cancel future aid contracts.
More broadly, Ali’s ruling was also a forceful rebuke of President Donald Trump’s sweeping and controversial assertion that he has the power to determine how funds allocated by Congress are spent in one of its first court tests.
“The Executive not only claims his constitutional authority to determine how to spend appropriated funds, but usurps Congress’s exclusive authority to dictate whether the funds should be spent in the first place,” Ali wrote. “In advancing this position, Defendants offer an unbridled view of Executive power that the Supreme Court has consistently rejected — a view that flouts multiple statutes whose constitutionality is not in question.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/03/11/usaid-foreign-funding-suspension-unlawful/
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