Supreme Court rules against Trump on aid freeze

What happened

The U.S. Supreme Court Wednesday rejected a bid by President Donald Trump's administration to continue withholding nearly $2 billion in payments for foreign humanitarian work already completed under contracts with the State Department and USAID. Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court's three liberals in the 5-4 decision, which sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to "clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance" with his earlier orders to quickly restart the flow of money.

Who said what

The "closely divided decision" suggests that the high court will subject Trump's various efforts to dramatically reshape the federal government to "close scrutiny," The New York Times said. Although the language of yesterday's ruling was "mild, tentative and not a little confusing," the "bottom line" is that Trump was dealt a narrow defeat on one of his "signature projects" — and we should expect some "major rulings testing, and perhaps recalibrating, the separation of powers required by the Constitution."

Justice Samuel Alito, in an angry dissent joined by three fellow conservative justices, argued that Ali had overstepped his authority and said he was "stunned" the high court would reward such "an act of judicial hubris" that "imposes a $2 billion penalty on American taxpayers." The aid groups suing for their payments said the ruling "confirms that the administration cannot ignore the law" and must now "lift its unlawful termination of federal assistance" and stop the resulting "needless suffering and death."

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What next?

Following Wednesday's ruling, Ali ordered the Trump administration to develop a schedule for restarting the payments, setting up a hearing Thursday on the timeline for aid resumption. In a closed-door House hearing, Pete Marocco, the "Trump political appointee overseeing the dismantling of USAID," detailed "concerns" he had about the ruling and "did not directly answer when asked by Democrats if he would obey the Supreme Court," The Associated Press said.