Supreme Court Hands Trump Major Win in Bid to Dismantle USAID

The Donald Trump administration got a temporary reprieve in its legal fight to refrain from making foreign aid payments for $1.9 billion.

Concretely, the Supreme Court temporarily paused a federal judge's order to resume the payments before midnight, making it the first time it intervenes in a case concerning the administration's initiatives to slash government spending.

In this context, Chief Justice John Roberts granted a stay and requested the two groups that sued the administration over the payments to provide an answer by Friday noon Eastern time. He sided with acting solicitor general Sarah Harris, who asked the deadline be vacated, calling it an "arbitrary timeline."

"Regardless whether this Court stays the district court's order, agency leadership has determined that the ordered payments 'cannot be accomplished in the time allotted by the' district court," Justice Department lawyers had said earlier Wednesday.

Federal Judge Amir H. Ali had given the Trump administration the deadline after holding a hearing on Tuesday focused on evidence that the Trump administration was seeking to find workarounds to prevent that outcome, The New York Times reported. Judge Ali repeatedly asked the DOJ lawyer what steps the Trump administration had taken to release funds, with the lawyer failing to provide answers.

Judge Ali had ruled funds should be unfrozen after determining that the Trump administration did not offer "any explanation for why a blanket suspension of all congressionally appropriated foreign aid, which set off a shockwave and upended" contracts with groups across the world "was a rational precursor to reviewing programs," a reference to the government's argument about needing to freeze the program to review which should be kept and which discarded. The ruling applies to existing contracts before Trump's executive order. He ordered the agencies pay all invoices and "letter of credit drawdown requests" on all work completed before the February 13 order.

"Defendants shall take no actions to impede the prompt payments of appropriated foreign assistance funds, and shall take all necessary actions to ensure the prompt payments of appropriated foreign assistance funds," he said.

Despite this legal battle in particular, the Trump administration is fast moving to end most foreign aid moving forward, saying it is eliminating more than 90% of all such contracts concerning USAID .