By Andrew Goudsward and Nate Raymond
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. judge on Monday extended a pause on the Trump administration’s plan to freeze federal loans, grants and other financial assistance, following a legal challenge from a group of advocacy organizations.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said during a federal court hearing in Washington, D.C., shortly before she issued the order, that a funding freeze would be “catastrophic” to organizations “designed to further the public interest.”
AliKhan ordered a short pause last week after a memo from the White House budget office directing agencies to pause funding to comply with Trump’s executive orders on immigration, climate change, diversity and other issues sparked widespread confusion.
That short pause, which came in the form of an administrative order, was set to expire on Monday unless AliKhan, an appointee of Trump’s Democratic predecessor Joe Biden, issued a temporary restraining order.
As a result of the extended pause, the Trump administration’s policy is now subject to two temporary restraining orders nationally, after a federal judge in Rhode Island on Friday issued a similar order at the behest of Democratic attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia.
The litigation was prompted by the memo last week from the acting head of the Office of Management and Budget. After first trying to clarify the funding pause, the OMB then fully withdrew its memo on Wednesday, which the administration argued should render the lawsuits seeking to block the policy moot.
But during a hearing on Monday, a lawyer for the National Council of Nonprofits and the other advocacy organizations said some recipients of federal grants were still struggling to access funding despite the memo’s withdrawal and the order issued on Friday by the Rhode Island judge.
“We know the policy remains in place,” Kevin Friedl, a lawyer for the advocacy groups at the liberal-leaning group Democracy Forward, told AliKhan.
A lawyer with the Trump administration’s U.S. Justice Department, Daniel Schwei, argued Trump retained the authority to shape funding priorities under executive orders that were not challenged in the lawsuit.
“The president is allowed to direct subordinate agencies and supervise their activities,” Schwei told the judge.
(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Nia Williams)
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