Judge Says Trump Admin Is Violating Order to Halt Funding Freeze

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U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. on Monday demanded that the Trump administration comply with his earlier order to halt a freeze on federal funding that's being challenged in multiple court cases. McConnell, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the District of Rhode Island by former Democratic President Barack Obama, is responsible for the case brought by Democratic attorneys general of the District of Columbia and 22 states. He is one of two judges who have issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) against the administration's attempted freeze.

A week after McConnell granted the TRO, the attorneys general on Friday filed a motion for enforcement of it, telling the judge that "plaintiff states and entities within the plaintiff states continue to be denied access to federal funds" and "these denials continue to cause immediate irreparable harm," putting "jobs, lives, and the social fabric of life" at risk.

Although the Trump administration claimed that it had engaged in "good-faith, diligent efforts to comply with the injunction" and called for the motion to be dismissed, McConnell wrote Monday that "the states have presented evidence in this motion that the defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement."

"The defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud," the judge noted in a five-page order. "But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud. The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country. These pauses in funding violate the plain text of the TRO."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/freeze-funds