Appeals Court Rejects Trump Administration’s Emergency Bid To Resume Spending Freeze

President Donald Trump’s blanket freeze of federal spending hit another stumbling block Tuesday when a federal appeals court refused an emergency bid by his administration to lift the restrictions.

The decision, by a three-judge panel of the Boston-based 1st Circuit Court of Appeals, unanimously rejected the effort, dealing the administration an initial defeat in the first appellate decision in an executive-power fight during Trump’s second term.

The appeals panel’s decision, for now, leaves the matter to Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John McConnell, who last month ordered the Trump administration to lift a sweeping spending freeze on federal programs. On Monday he issued a second sharply-worded order after reviewing claims that officials were defying his initial command.

It’s the latest legal setback for the new administration, which has seen courts across the country block some of Trump’s highly touted priorities, saying the administration appeared to be defying laws and the Constitution in a rush to implement them.

Even though McConnell’s order, known as a “temporary restraining order,” is not typically appealable, Justice Department attorneys raced to the 1st Circuit, urging the appeals court to grant an “administrative stay” that would set aside McConnell’s orders. They argued that his initial order was an egregious overreach, intruding on Trump’s ability to manage federal spending.

The appeals judges assigned to the case — David Barron, Julie Rikelman and Lara Montecalvo — cited “well-recognized uncertainty” about whether the kind of stay DOJ sought is legally available at this juncture and said they were not persuaded it was justified.

“Defendants do not cite any authority in support of their administrative stay request or identify any harm related to a specific funding action or actions that they will face without their requested administrative stay,” the appeals judges wrote in their two-page order.

The suit McConnell is overseeing was filed last month by 22 Democratic state attorneys generaland initially targeted an Office of Management and Budget directive that instructed federal agencies to implement a broad pause of grant and aid funding. That memo was withdrawn within days, but the states have alleged that funding of various programs remains blocked.

McConnell and Barron are appointees of President Barack Obama, while Rikelman and Montecalvo were appointed by President Joe Biden.