Supreme Court allows Trump to withhold $4 billion in foreign aid

The Supreme Court on Friday cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue to withhold over $4 billion in foreign aid already approved by Congress.

Earlier this month, a federal judge in Washington, D.C. ordered the administration to release billions in foreign aid funds by the end of September — which the administration later appealed.

On Friday, the justices voted 6-3 along ideological lines to allow the administration to freeze the foreign aid funds. The court’s conservatives said Trump’s foreign policy authority outweighed the harms claimed by the international aid groups suing and suggested that the groups may not have the standing to sue.

In the dissent, Justice Elena Kagan took issue with the way the ruling was reached, which was through the emergency docket.

“We have had to consider this application on a short fuse — less than three weeks. We have done so with scant briefing, no oral argument, and no opportunity to deliberate in conference,” Kagan wrote.

Last month, President Trump informed House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., that he will not be spending $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid through a controversial and rare authority known as a pocket rescission.

Typically, lawmakers have 45 days to consider a request to rescind or cancel appropriated funds. But when a request comes close to the end of a budget year, the president may bypass the legislative branch. A pocket rescission has not been used since the 1970s.

The pocket rescission includes targeting funds for development assistance grants, the United Nations, and international peacekeeping operations