The fight over funding is the heart of the Trump agenda to disembowel the Democrat-Leftist activist federal-government-funded industrial complex. When successful, after the court challenges have worn out, tens of billions of dollars that went to leftwing activist groups will have gone away. Keep this up for several years and the beast will starve.
Today the Supreme Court once again issued a stay against a lower court injunction interfering with Trump’s executive authority.
From the SCOTUS Order in Department of State v. AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition:
On September 3, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia entered a preliminary injunction directing the Executive to obligate roughly $10.5 billion of appropriated aid funding set to expire on September 30. Of that $10.5 billion, $4 billion was proposed to be rescinded in a “special message” transmitted pursuant to the Impoundment Control Act. See 2 U. S. C. §681 et seq. After the District Court and the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit denied stays of that order, the Government filed this application to stay the District Court’s injunction. The application for stay presented to THE CHIEF JUSTICE and by him referred to the Court is granted. The Government, at this early stage, has made a sufficient showing that the Impoundment Control Act precludes respondents’ suit, brought pursuant to the Administrative Procedure Act, to enforce the appropriations at issue here. The Government has also made a sufficient showing that mandamus relief is unavailable to respondents. And, on the record before the Court, the asserted harms to the Executive’s conduct of foreign affairs appear to outweigh the potential harm faced by respondents. This order should not be read as a final determination on the merits. The relief granted by the Court today reflects our preliminary view, consistent with the standards for interim relief.The District Court’s September 3, 2025 order granting a preliminary injunction in case Nos. 1:25–cv–400 and 1:25cv–402 is stayed as to the funding subject to the President’s August 28 special message, pending the disposition of the Government’s appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such writ is timely sought. Should the petition for a writ of certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.
I was really hoping for an angry KBJ dissent, or at least a fiery Sotomayor dissent. All we got was Kagan – booorrrring (wake me up when it’s over):
This emergency application raises novel issues fundamental to the relationship between the President and Congress. It arises from the refusal of the President and his officers to obligate and spend billions of dollars that Congress appropriated for foreign aid. Prospective beneficiaries of those funds challenged the decision to withhold them as an unlawful impoundment—essentially, a Presidential usurpation of Congress’s power of the purse. The main legal question presented in this application involves the meaning and effect of a statute concerning impoundments: More specifically, the question is whether that statute precludes the beneficiaries’ suit to make the Executive comply with appropriations laws. This Court, before today, has dealt with the statute only in passing; neither have lower courts much addressed it. Deciding the question presented thus requires the Court to work in uncharted territory. And, to repeat, the stakes are high: At issue is the allocation of power between the Executive and Congress over the expenditure of public monies.
Why is it called a “Pocket Recission“?
The decision effectively blessed Trump’s “pocket rescission” — a controversial maneuver in which the president withheld the funds toward the end of the fiscal year so that the money could not be spent even if Congress did not approve the rescission.That tactic was designed to circumvent the usual process for a rescission of funds: a special request from the president followed by a 45-day period in which Congress must agree to the request for it to become effective.The ruling comes as the federal government hurtles toward a Sept. 30 deadline to avert a government shutdown, and it could make bipartisan negotiations an even taller order. Democrats wary of cutting deals with GOP leaders must now face the more concrete prospect that Trump could again refuse to spend funds appropriated by Congress.
Here are some of the funding that has been stopped through this pocket rescission:
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