By John Kruzel
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday to intervene in its bid to withhold billions of dollars in foreign aid authorized by Congress, part of the Republican president’s effort to scale back U.S. assistance abroad.
The Justice Department asked the court to halt Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali’s order requiring administration officials to take steps to spend around $4 billion that they have sought to claw back.
The money at issue in the case was intended by Congress for foreign aid, United Nations peacekeeping operations and democracy-promotion efforts overseas.
The Justice Department said in its filing that the administration views the $4 billion of disputed foreign aid funding as “contrary to U.S. foreign policy.”
Congress budgeted billions in foreign aid last year, about $11 billion of which must be spent or obligated ahead of a deadline of September 30 – the last day of the U.S. government’s current fiscal year – lest it expire.
After being sued by aid groups that expected to compete for the funding, the administration said last month that it intended to spend $6.5 billion of the disputed funds. Trump also sought to block $4 billion in the funding through an unusual step called a “pocket rescission” that bypasses Congress.
Ali ruled on September 3 that the administration cannot simply choose to withhold the money, and that it must comply with appropriations laws unless Congress changes them.
The judge’s injunction “raises a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers,” Justice Department lawyers wrote in Monday’s filing, adding that it would be “self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind.” Under the U.S. Constitution, the government’s executive, legislative and judicial branches are assigned different powers.
Trump budget director Russell Vought has argued that the president can withhold funds for 45 days after requesting a rescission, which would run out the clock until the end of the fiscal year. The White House said the tactic was last used in 1977.
Lauren Bateman, a lawyer for a group of plaintiffs, said on Monday the administration is asking the Supreme Court “to defend the illegal tactic of a ‘pocket rescission.’ “
“The administration is effectively asking the Supreme Court to bless its attempt to unlawfully accumulate power,” Bateman said.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 ruling on Friday declined to halt Ali’s order, prompting the administration’s request to the Supreme Court.
The administration has repeatedly asked the justices this year to intervene to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, has sided with the administration in almost every case that it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.
In an earlier iteration of the foreign aid funding case, the court in a 5-4 vote in March declined to let the administration withhold payment of some $2 billion to aid organizations for work they already performed for the government.
(Reporting by John Kruzel; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; Editing by Will Dunham)
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