Washington – The Supreme Court delivered another victory to the Trump administration on Friday by allowing him to retain $ 4 billion in foreign aid expenses that was assigned by Congress.
A federal judge ruled that the administration would have to spend the funds for the end of the month, but the decision of the Supreme Court puts it on hold.
The brief order indicated that the Government has made a “sufficient demonstration” that the groups they demanded were forbidden to file the lawsuit in question by virtue of a law called Easy Control Law.
The court, which has a conservative majority 6-3, also pointed out that “the damages affirmed to the conduct of the Foreign Affairs Executive seem to overcome the potential damage” to the plaintiffs, who are several groups that receive foreign aid funds.
The court has now granted 20 emergency requests filed by the Administration since the second term of President Donald Trump began in January. The volume of emergency presentations and the rate at which the court has ruled in favor of the administration is not precedents. The latter has caused criticism of the legal community, including the judges of the lower courts.
The three liberals in the Court dismitted, with Judge Elena Kagan writing that the legal problem in the case has not appeared before, which means that the court was working in “unknown territory.”
Once again, the majority, however, granted the emergency application made by the Government without listening to oral arguments or issuing a totally reasoned decision, he added.
“Therefore, we should have denied this request, allowed the lower courts to advance and ensure that the heavy question presented here receives the consideration it deserves,” Kagan wrote.
The president of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, had issued a temporary suspension that arrested the lower court ruling while the Supreme Court decided that the next steps take.
The Trump administration, which has aggressively sought to exercise its power during Congress in recent months, has notified legislators its intention not to spend the funds.
This action has caused a debate on whether the president has such authority, as under the Constitution, is the role of Congress to assign money for President to spend.
The Trump administration has already taken quick measures to unravel the United States Agency for International Development, the government department that traditionally delivered billions of dollars a year in foreign aid to address issues such as access to water and disease prevention.
The Congress was assigned for the money for the current fiscal year, which ends on September 30. The Trump administration has said that it wants to retain $ 4 billion in foreign aid, but will spend another $ 6.5 billion that Congress was assigned.
The Embediamment Control Law was approved in 1974 to regulate the president’s control over the budget. That followed the efforts of then President Richard Nixon to retain spending on programs he did not support.
The Trump administration says it can retain money through a process known as “termination”, in which the President informs the Congress about his intention not to spend certain funds.
But with a short time before the funds expire, it is unlikely that Congress respond, even if it wanted. Republicans who widely support Trump’s policies control both cameras and are in the process of trying to finance the government for the next fiscal year before October 1; Otherwise, the government will close.
The administration’s decision to wait until the end of the fiscal year to notify Congress is a legally questionable tactic that has been called a “pocket termination” and has not been used in almost 50 years.
The American district judge based in Washington, Amir Ali, had ruled on September 3 that the administration must spend the money unless the Congress acts to withdraw it.
The general lawyer D. John Sauer said in court that presents that the Ali ruling imposed unacceptable restrictions to the president for, among other things, forcing the administration to participate in diplomatic discussions with other countries on how to spend the money
The underlying demand that challenges Trump’s termination was presented by several groups led by the Global Health Council.
Their lawyers said in the judicial documents that the legal arguments of the administration would change the Embediamment Control Law upon reaching the conclusion that “the Congress Signature Law intended to control the reservoirs actually provided the President to the President of Vast Powers to confiscate funds, and made it virtually impossible to challenge the reservoirs in the courts in the Court.”
