The DOJ is appealing a Rhode Island federal judge’s ruling requiring the executive branch to unfreeze government spending.
The Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday denied an appeal by the Trump administration to pause an order by a Rhode Island federal judge which ruled that the administration can’t freeze government spending for thousands of federal programs that are under review.
A three-judge appellate panel ruled for U.S. District Judge John McConnell to quickly clarify the concerns the administration had raised. The 1st Circuit also asked the administration to file additional documents by the end of Feb. 13 to further make their case that Judge McConnell overreached his authority.
In an
appeal lodged by the Justice Department on Monday, the executive branch argued that the judge’s order bars the president from exercising his lawful authority.
The White House has said it will continue to seek legal clarity on the
authority of the president to decide what the government should spend money on, which could see the issue escalate to the Supreme Court.
“These unlawful injunctions are a continuation of the weaponization of justice against President Trump,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said.
Judge McConnell, who
blocked the funding freeze with a temporary restraining order on Jan. 31, said on Feb. 10 that the Trump administration violated his order to halt the funding freeze and to release the withheld funds.
Judge McConnell had initially ruled on a
lawsuit by Democratic attorneys general from 22 states, as well as the District of Columbia, after the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) published a memo ordering a
freeze of billions of dollars in federal loans and grants.
OMB had
rescinded the memo on Jan. 29 but the judge determined the temporary restraining order was pertinent due to evidence that a freeze on some federal funds remained in effect.
The ruling is Trump’s first appellate court setback of his second term. U.S. Circuit Judges David Barron, Lara Montecalvo, and Julie Rikelman make up the appellate panel.
Vice President J.D. Vance also weighed in on the temporary injunction. “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power,” he
said in a post on X on Sunday.
Yale Law Prof. Jeb Rubenfeld
agreed with Vance’s assessment.
“Where the Executive has sole and plenary power under the Constitution—as in commanding military operations or exercising prosecutorial discretion—judges cannot constitutionally interfere,” Rubenfeld wrote on X.
Jeffrey Tucker, president of the Brownstone Institute and an Epoch Times contributor, also
commented on the judicial response to Trump administration actions, suggesting many cases will likely make their way up the judicial system.
“The Supreme Court is going to have to rule soon on if there can be an actual president elected by the people or if this whole voting thing is just a fake veneer covering a permanent government,” said Tucker in a post on X, which was reposted by Elon Musk, who heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which is reviewing all federal programs for waste and fraud.
Musk has also opined on social media regarding judges blocking Trump administration orders.
“The notion of having a judge job for life, no matter how bad the judgments, is ridiculous!” the world’s richest man
wrote on social media. “Enough is enough.”
The American Bar Association criticized statements by high-ranking officials of the Trump administration challenging the judicial rulings.
“These statements attack the legitimacy of judicial oversight just because a court’s ruling is not what the administration wants in a particular case,” it said in a
statement. “It is a fundamental cornerstone of our democracy that the courts are the protectors of the citizenry from government overreach.”
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
