Further development in the unfolding fight between the judicial branch and Trump executive branch
Earlier today, I wrote about the dangerous trajectory toward violent conflict set off by the Trump regime's refusal to comply with federal court orders. Now, the twenty-three states who won an injunction to pause Trump's efforts to stop funding federal programs have filed a motion with the court seeking emergency enforcement of this judgement in the face of repeated violations by Trump officials and staff. The lawsuit is New York v. Trump. Today's motion from the plaintiff-states triggers what I expect to be an evermore pitched battle between the federal district court and the Trump regime.
According to the new motion:
[T]here has been an ever-changing kaleidoscope of federal financial assistance that has been suspended, deleted, in transit, under review, and more since entry of the Order. These conditions persist today. In particular, Defendants have—for the first time this week—taken the position that certain federal funds, including federal financial assistance under the Inflation Reduction Act (“IRA”) and the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act (“IIJA”), is outside the scope of the Court’s Order, a position contradicted by the plain text of the Order and the notice Defendants previously filed with the Court explaining their view of the scope of the Order. See Order 11-12.
In other words, Trump agencies continue to refusing to make Congressionally appropriated and allocated federal funds available to the programs and people supposed to receive them. Additionally, in some cases they are claiming that the Court's order to unfreeze federal funding does not apply where in fact it seems it plainly does.
The plaintiffs in New York v. Trump won a temporary restraining order, granted because their suit was sufficiently likely to prevail on the merits and any halt in federal funding would irreparably harm the people and programs entitled to it. The Court's order anticipated shenanigans from the Trump administration. The order specifies in detail what the executive branch may not do while the litigation proceeds. Defendants may “not pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate Defendants’ compliance with awards and obligations to provide federal financial assistance to the States, and Defendants shall not impede the States’ access to such awards and obligations, ...” Order 11. The order explicitly prohibits any halt in funding while the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) reviews federal assistance programs. OMB cannot use such a review as an excuse to stop federal funds from reaching their Congressionally intended beneficiaries. Nor may OMB or any other federal agency use semantics to dodge the order: the order expressly forbid defendants from implementing a freeze by calling it something else. This is how you have to state an order when dealing with untrustworthy parties who have little interest in the letter of the law, let alone the spirit of it.
Today's motion by the states to enforce the original order gives numerous examples of noncompliance by the defendants. The motion does not seek sanctions, just further orders from the court, a typical step in a first motion to get somebody to obey a court's earlier order. From the motion:
The Court should further Order that Defendants immediately take every step necessary to effectuate the Order, including clearing any administrative, operational, or technical hurdles to implementation. In addition, the Court should Order compliance with the plain text of the existing Order not to pause any funds on the basis of [various pronouncements predating the Order.]
Assuming the district court does issue further orders, I doubt the defendants will comply with those. Eventually, with enough evidence of noncompliance, the court can issue a civil contempt of court judgement. The penalties can be fines or imprisonment, raising the problem I discussed in my earlier post: the difficulty of finding law enforcement authorized, willing, and able to enforce these sanctions.