Judge slams Trump over ‘nationwide panic,’ orders feds to restart spending

President Trump’s frantic pace of executive action is creating problems in federal courts, where judges say he has gone too fast and too furious.

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan issued a temporary restraining order directing the White House budget office to restart the federal spending spigot after a botched attempt at a “pause” last week.

She said the Office of Management and Budget seemed to “run roughshod” over Congress with last week’s order halting grant and contract payments to outside groups that deliver government assistance.

The upshot was a decision of “constitutional magnitude” that forced organizations to fire workers, dip into their own pockets or, in some cases, fail to deliver the food, housing or other assistance the government had been funding.

“OMB ordered a nationwide freeze on pre-existing financial commitments without considering any of the specifics of the individual loans, grants or funds,” Judge AliKhan wrote. “And it attempted to wrest the power of the purse away from the only branch of government entitled to wield it.”

A federal judge in Rhode Island issued a more narrow ruling late last week on the funding pause and a ruling halting Mr. Trump’s attempt to stop children of illegal immigrants from automatically becoming U.S. citizens.

More lawsuits are pending against a host of Mr. Trump’s other early moves, including curtailing taxpayer funding for legal advice for illegal immigrants, blocking asylum claims, speeding up deportations and limiting civil service protections for some federal workers.

The argument before Judge AliKhan seemed to illustrate the pitfalls associated with Mr. Trump’s frenetic pace of action.

Judge AliKhan said the funding pause, declared by OMB on Jan. 27, sparked a “nationwide panic” for organizations that rely on taxpayer money to deliver services.

“Organizations with every conceivable mission — healthcare, scientific research, emergency shelters, and more — were shut out of funding portals or denied critical resources beginning on January 28,” she said in a 30-page legal memo.

The Justice Department had urged the judge to butt out of the dispute.

“The fundamental question in this case is whether the president and his advisers can tell agencies that, consistent with their statutory authorities, they should pause funding to ensure the funding is consistent with the president’s priorities,” said Daniel Schwei, the government lawyer defending Mr. Trump’s position.

In addition to the OMB pause, the Justice Department says the president has issued seven executive orders, including funding pauses on “woke” spending, foreign aid and climate change.

Mr. Schwei said it was impossible to determine whether the groups lost funding because of the OMB order and not the president’s directives or agencies’ decision-making.

He tried to argue that it was up to Mr. Trump’s opponents to prove in every instance that their funding difficulties were results of the OMB memo.

The challengers in Monday’s case insisted, and Judge AliKhan agreed, that there was too much chaos and some of it had to be from the memo.

The plaintiffs filed a slew of declarations with the court from organizations that usually get federal money but who said as recently as this weekend that they were still shut out.

“We have been inundated while working on this case this week with people contacting us who are having these problems,” said Kevin Friedl, the attorney for the challengers.

Complicating the situation was the chain of events last week.

Judge AliKhan had issued a procedural pause of the pause to give the sides time to file initial arguments. OMB then issued a memo seemingly rescinding the funding pause.

Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, posted on X that it was “not a rescission of the federal funding freeze.” She said it was “simply a rescission of the OMB memo.”

The sides fought Monday over what that meant.

Mr. Schwei said it means the OMB memo isn’t in effect but Mr. Trump’s executive orders halting spending are.

Judge AliKhan, a Biden appointee, was not sold.

“I can’t cross-examine a tweet,” said the judge, who sits in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Judge AliKhan also shot down a Justice Department request that she convert the temporary restraining order into a preliminary injunction, which the administration could quickly appeal.

For now, that means the case remains with her.