Summary
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to release billions of dollars in blocked foreign aid within 48 hours, citing noncompliance with a 13-day-old court order.
The freeze, imposed by Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order, halted funding for USAID and State Department programs, affecting hundreds of millions of dollars owed to nonprofits and businesses.
The cutoff forced tens of thousands of layoffs and jeopardized critical aid projects. Despite the Feb. 13 ruling, no payments resumed.
This follows another case where a judge found the administration failed to unfreeze trillions in domestic grants and loans.
The next step is the DoJ sends the US Marshalls to arrest the President for failure to comply with a federal court order. Let’s hope they follow through.
Congress is not withholding the funds, so they are not committing a crime. That’s part of the reason for the accountability executive order, obscuring responsibility.