A federal judge announces that President Trump can “pause” executive branch agencies from spending money, even though he supposedly doesn’t have the right to “stop” them from spending it. Of course, as usual there is no legal definition of a “pause” versus a “stop”. Perhaps some emanations and penumbras can be found to further clarify the matter.
A federal judge on Wednesday reaffirmed his temporary restraining order against the Trump administration’s efforts to freeze billions of dollars in federal grants and loans, but clarified that President Donald Trump does have the authority to pause federal spending if it complies with existing regulations.
Judge John J. McConnell Jr. previously ruled that the White House defied his recent court order to unfreeze the billions of dollars in aid, which stems from funds that were expected to be paused by the Office of Management and Budget.
The Trump administration appealed McConnell’s earlier decision on Monday, but a federal appeals court declined to hear the case and urged McConnell to clarify his order quickly to avoid any further confusion.
McConnell on Wednesday stated that the federal government, including the president, does still have the right to pause federal spending, but has to do so in accordance with preexisting laws, the Washington Examiner reported.
“The [court’s previous order] does not bar both the President and much of the Federal Government from exercising their own lawful authorities to withhold funding,” McConnell wrote.
The judge also emphasized that the federal government does not need the court’s permission to halt spending if it’s clearly within existing guidelines.
“The [restraining order] nor the Court’s subsequent Order require the Defendants to seek ‘preclearance’ from the Court before acting to terminate funding when that decision is based on actual authority in the applicable statutory, regulatory, or grant terms,” McConnell added.
This is just the usual double-talking talmudism of the courts. The more I’ve learned about the courts and the law, the more I’m convinced that courts and lawyers should be banned from any civilized society. Their actions over time are reliably subversive and inevitably inversive. The end results are no different than having a king and his nobles simply making up the rules as they go along, only without accountability and with more corruption.
UPDATE: There appear to be more, and much bigger, changes in the works.
It was very bad news for the permanent bureaucracy that DOGE and Congress are on the same team. It would have been so much better for them had Congress taken umbrage over the Executive refusing to make payment they’d authorized. But it got so much better.
Then Johnson delivered the coup de grâce, the single sentence revealing a ghastly Sword of Damocles dangling on a gossamer thread right above the Deep State’s masked head, and a critical puzzle piece dropped into what we perceive in the strategic brilliance of Trump’s de-Swamping order of operations. Johnson said:
We have a $36 trillion dollar federal debt. We have got to get ahold of these things. You’re going to see it reflected in the reconciliation package that comes forward, you’re going to see it reflected in the appropriations as we go forward, and you’re going to see it in these efforts to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. And we think the final number on that is going to be substantial and a game changer in Washington.
The clear threat was in Johnson’s final sentence. A game-changer in Washington. DOGE isn’t the weapon, it’s just the canary in the limestone mine. Now that Congress knows where the waste is —like USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the Department of Education, DEI spending, the Treasury, Social Security, and the rest— legislators are working up a budget bill to nuke the Deep State from orbit.
It’s wonky, but this is very important. The fact Johnson announced a budget bill is critical. Bills related to reconciling the budget can be passed using a process called ‘budget reconciliation,’ which avoids the Senate filibuster and can be approved with a simple majority. In other words, it’s the Deep State’s worst nightmare: first, DOGE identified the bureaucratic bloat, and so now Republicans in Congress have a viable legislative path to cut the guts out of the bloated, mutant Swamp whale…
The same activist judges siding against him using Congress as an excuse, must now twist into legal pretzels somehow arguing that neither Congress nor the Executive hold the power of the purse, which is even less constitutionally plausible. In other words, Trump tricked the judges into committing to a Congressional-powers argument, which becomes moot when Congress does it.
I’d also like to see him remove the possibility of judicial review from all his executive orders; the courts need to be not only circumnavigated, but crushed, for their illegal and extraconstitutional interference into the operations of the Executive and Legislative branches. But the God-Emperor 2.0 is good, and quite possibly he’ll give us both.
DISCUSS ON SG
