A federal judge has maintained a temporary restraining order on President Donald Trump’s spending freeze while she considers entering another hold known as a preliminary injunction.
U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan said she will maintain the block at the end of a Feb. 20 hearing in Washington where the Trump administration cautioned against a sweeping injunction on freezing government spending.
The case centered on a now-rescinded memo in which the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) advised agencies they should pause spending in pursuit of various executive orders from Trump.
A lawyer for the Trump administration told AliKhan that an additional injunction wasn’t necessary and that the plaintiffs, which included multiple nonprofits, were seeking to prevent harms that were speculative given that the spending pause had been rescinded.
The administration also argued that it was rational for the executive to impose a temporary spending pause to the extent allowed by law.
Kevin Friedl, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told AliKhan that concerns justifying the first restraining order remained but that his clients got access to funding after court intervention.
“Since the court’s order, it appears that the freeze has mostly—but not entirely—thawed, slowly and by degrees,” the plaintiffs said in a filing on Feb. 11.
“The individual declarants who at the [temporary restraining order] stage described their difficulties accessing funds have since been able to draw on their open awards.”
Both during the hearing and in their briefing, the plaintiffs’ attorney referenced reporting that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) had continued to freeze funding.
The administration indicated on Feb. 20 that FEMA’s action was separate from the OMB memo.
The administration appealed McConnell’s order, and its attorney told AliKhan that the Rhode Island order was effectively requiring the government to seek pre-clearance from the court to exercise its authority to withhold funding.
