By U.S. President Donald Trump speaks on the day he signs documents as he issues executive orders and pardons for Jan. 6 defendants in the Oval Office at the White House on Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, 2025.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
A federal judge paused until next week a Trump administration order that would have frozen the issuance of existing federal grants and loans until agencies vetted them.
Judge Loren AliKhan’s ruling Tuesday during a hearing conducted on Zoom came just minutes before the freezing order was set to take effect at 5 p.m. ET. At stake are funds potentially worth trillions of dollars.
AliKhan said her administrative stay would expire at 5 p.m. ET Monday unless she decides to grant a temporary restraining order, or TRO, as requested by plaintiffs who filed a lawsuit earlier in the day challenging the Trump administration’s action.
The judge scheduled a hearing for Monday morning for arguments on the requested TRO in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.
The U.S. Department of Justice had objected to the administrative stay against the order issued by the Office of Management and Budget, which is part of an effort by President Donald Trump to cut spending that does not comply with his efforts to purge “woke ideology” from government programs.
AliKhan’s stay only affects the disbursement of government funds that already have been authorized, not money that was being sought.
The judge ordered the hearing within hours of the filing of the suit challenging the order, and as the Medicaid reimbursement portal system went offline in what several senators believed was a reaction to the Trump administration’s order.
The OMB order, which was revealed only by news outlets Monday night, has generated widespread confusion about what programs stand to lose funding.
The memo details a “Temporary Pause of Agency Grant, Loan, and Other Financial Assistance Programs,” according to its subject line.
It requires federal agencies to identify and review all federal financial assistance programs and supporting activities consistent with Trump’s policies, saying the agencies “must temporarily pause all activities related to obligation and disbursement” of all federal financial assistance that may be implicated by Trump’s executive orders, including foreign aid, assistance to nongovernmental organizations, “woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
Nonprofit groups and a small business organization sued OMB in federal court in Washington on Tuesday seeking to block the order from taking effect later in the day.
Jessica Morton, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, told AliKhan during Tuesday afternoon’s hearing that if the order went into effect, it would cause “unequivocal harm” to at least some of the grant programs operated by her clients.
Morton said the “chaos caused by the complexity” of the order warranted a delay in its implementation.
She also said OMB was to blame for the situation because the order only came to light less than 24 hours before it was set to take effect.
