Appeals court rejects Trump administration bid to reinstate funding freeze

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected the Trump administration’s bid to pause a lower court’s order that temporarily halted a massive freeze in federal funding.

A judge in Rhode Island on Monday blocked the funding freeze and ordered the government to “immediately restore frozen funding.”

In its ruling Tuesday, a three-judge panel for the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote that the “defendants do not cite any authority in support of their administrative stay request or identify any harm related to a specific funding action or actions that they will face without their requested administrative stay.”

The Justice Department had sought two different kinds of pauses of U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell’s restraining order barring the government from continuing to implement its sweeping freeze of funding, and another ruling that found that government had violated the order. Lawyers for the DOJ contended in part that McConnell’s order was vague, but the appeals court suggested they should be patient.

“We are confident the District Court will act with dispatch to provide any clarification needed with respect to, among other things, the defendants’ contention that the February 10 Order ‘bars both the President and much of the Federal Government from exercising their own lawful authorities to withhold funding without the prior approval of the district court,'” the appeals court wrote Tuesday.

It said both sides should submit further arguments on the government’s request for a stay pending a full appeal by Thursday. The administration has asked the appeals court to rule on the full stay request by Friday.