WASHINGTON: The Trump administration has kept withholding foreign aid despite a court order and must at least temporarily restore the funding to programs worldwide, a federal judge said Thursday.
Judge Amir H. Ali declined a request by nonprofit groups doing business with the US Agency for International Development to find Trump administration officials in contempt of his order, however.
The Washington, D.C., district court judge said administration officials had used his Feb. 13 order to temporarily lift the freeze on foreign aid to instead “come up with a new, post-hoc rationalization for the en masse suspension” of funding.
Despite the judge’s order to the contrary, USAID Deputy Secretary Pete Marocco, a Trump appointee, and other top officials had “continued their blanket suspension of funds,” Ali said.
The ruling comes in a lawsuit by the nonprofit groups challenging the Trump administration’s month-old cutoff of foreign assistance through USAID and the State Department, which shut down $60 billion in annual aid and development programs overseas almost overnight.
Even after Ali’s order, USAID staffers and contractors say the State Department and USAID still have not restored payments even on hundreds of millions of dollars already owed by the government.
Marocco and other administration officials defended the nonpayment in written arguments to the judge this week. They contended that they could lawfully stop or terminate payments under thousands of contracts without violating the judge’s order.
The Trump administration says it is now doing a program-by-program review of all State Department and USAID foreign assistance programs to see which ones meet the Trump administration’s agenda.
Aid organizations, and current and former USAID staffers in interviews and court affidavits, say the funding freeze and deep Trump administration purges of USAID staffers have brought US foreign assistance globally to a halt, forced thousands of layoffs and is driving government partners to financial collapse.
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Trump administration is flouting an order to temporarily lift a freeze on foreign aid, judge says
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Trump administration is flouting an order to temporarily lift a freeze on foreign aid, judge says
- Judge Amir H. Ali noted that Trump's appointees to the State Department and USAID had “continued their blanket suspension of funds”
- The judge earlier issued a freeze order based on a lawsuit by the nonprofit groups challenging Trump's cutoff of US foreign assistance
Putin says Russia will achieve its Ukraine aims by force if Kyiv doesn’t want peace
MOSCOW: Russian President Vladimir Putin said Ukraine was in no hurry for peace and if it did not want to resolve their conflict peacefully, Moscow would accomplish all its goals by force.
Putin’s remarks on Saturday, carried by state news agency TASS, followed a vast Russian drone and missile attack that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to say Russia was demonstrating its wish to continue the war while Kyiv wanted peace.
Zelensky is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday to seek a resolution to the war Putin launched nearly four years ago with a full-scale invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbor.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Putin’s remarks.
Russian commanders told Putin during an inspection visit that Moscow’s forces had captured the towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Kremlin said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s military rejected Russia’s assertions about Huliaipole and Myrnohrad as false statements. The situation in both places remains “difficult” but “defensive operations” by Ukrainian troops are ongoing, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a statement on social media.
The Southern Command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Telegram “fierce fighting” continued in Huliaipole. “However, a substantial part of Huliaipole continues to be held by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.”
Verifying battlefield claims is difficult as access on both sides is restricted, information is tightly controlled and front lines shift quickly, with media relying on satellite and geolocated footage that can be partial or delayed.
Putin’s remarks on Saturday, carried by state news agency TASS, followed a vast Russian drone and missile attack that prompted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to say Russia was demonstrating its wish to continue the war while Kyiv wanted peace.
Zelensky is to meet US President Donald Trump in Florida on Sunday to seek a resolution to the war Putin launched nearly four years ago with a full-scale invasion of Russia’s smaller neighbor.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Putin’s remarks.
Russian commanders told Putin during an inspection visit that Moscow’s forces had captured the towns of Myrnohrad, Rodynske and Artemivka in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donetsk, as well as Huliaipole and Stepnohirsk in the Zaporizhzhia region, the Kremlin said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine’s military rejected Russia’s assertions about Huliaipole and Myrnohrad as false statements. The situation in both places remains “difficult” but “defensive operations” by Ukrainian troops are ongoing, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said in a statement on social media.
The Southern Command of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said on Telegram “fierce fighting” continued in Huliaipole. “However, a substantial part of Huliaipole continues to be held by the Defense Forces of Ukraine.”
Verifying battlefield claims is difficult as access on both sides is restricted, information is tightly controlled and front lines shift quickly, with media relying on satellite and geolocated footage that can be partial or delayed.
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