Congress
Justice Department asks Supreme Court to allow Trump to withhold foreign aid
The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow the president to withhold billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated foreign aid before the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30.
The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal with the high court Tuesday, asking the justices to pause a federal district judge’s order that requires the administration to come up with a plan to lay out the money by the deadline next month.
Solicitor General John Sauer argued in the new filing that groups representing aid contractors have no legal basis to force such spending and that it’s up to Congress to challenge executive branch spending shortfalls under a 1974 law, the Impoundment Control Act.
“Congress did not upset the delicate interbranch balance by allowing for unlimited, unconstrained private suits,” Sauer wrote. “Any lingering dispute about the proper disposition of funds that the President seeks to rescind shortly before they expire should be left to the political branches, not effectively prejudged by the district court.”
While Sauer’s submission is framed as an argument to defer to Congress, he also makes clear that the administration believes Trump has authority to engage in so-called pocket recissions that would occur so late in the fiscal year that it would be impractical for Congress to reverse them.
It’s the latest escalation in Trump’s effort to wrest the power of the purse from Congress, one that has alarmed lower courts and rankled even some Republicans in Congress.
Trump and his budget architect Russell Vought have long sought to challenge the 1974 law, which establishes strict procedures when the president intends to cancel spending authorized by Congress. Though the president can briefly pause some spending, he must get congressional permission to cancel it altogether through a process known as “rescission.”
Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled, 2-1, that only Congress’ comptroller general — the leader of the Government Accountability Office — has the power to challenge allegedly unlawful impoundments by the president. Groups that rely on foreign aid funding and claim the right to sue over withheld grants are asking the full bench of the D.C. Circuit to reverse that conclusion, but the full court has not yet acted.
For now, an earlier order from U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in favor of the aid groups remains in effect. Ali, a Biden appointee, mandated formal obligation of the funds by the end of September. That order is presently due to be set aside unless the full D.C. Circuit steps in — but the Trump administration seems eager to get the issue in front of the Supreme Court quickly.
Sauer asked the justices to rule by Sept. 2 or to put in place a temporary order that the government need not comply with Ali’s directive.
An official with one of the groups challenging the funding holdbacks, the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, said it wasn’t surprising that the administration is rushing the dispute to the high court.
“Time and again, this administration has shown their disdain for foreign assistance and a disregard for people’s lives in the United States and around the world. But even more broadly and dangerously, this administration’s actions further erodes Congress’s role and responsibility as an equal branch of government,” the coalition’s executive director, Mitchell Warren, said in a statement. “The question being put to SCOTUS is whether they will be complicit in further eroding the constitutional commitment to checks and balance.”
Carmen Paun contributed to this report.
Congress
Mike Johnson tries again to extend contested spy law
House GOP leaders on Thursday unveiled the text of a new three-year extension of a key spy law, as Speaker Mike Johnson tried to overcome ultra-conservative resistance and pass it next week.
The proposed reauthorization of the so-called Section 702 law includes some new oversight and penalties for abuses of the spy authority but stops short of warrant requirements sought by GOP hard-liners.
Conservatives have pushed back on extending Section 702, which allows warrantless surveillance of foreigners, because of concerns about U.S. citizens being caught up in the program.
The faction that’s been opposing an extension has not yet signed off on the latest plan. GOP leaders plan to continue talks into the weekend.
Congress
House GOP leaders scramble to sell Senate’s slimmed-down budget with promises of ‘Reconciliation 3.0’
House Republican leaders want a floor vote next week on the Senate’s budget resolution, the first step in writing an immigration enforcement bill and passing it by President Donald Trump’s June 1 deadline.
“It has to be clean because it has to be quick,” Speaker Mike Johnson said Thursday, indicating that conservatives could not make major changes to the other chamber’s blueprint at this time.
But Johnson and others still have to lock in support from conservatives who are threatening to vote against it if it doesn’t encompass more top GOP policy priorities, and it is proving to be a delicate balancing act.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (La.) met Thursday morning with Budget Chair Jodey Arrington (Texas) and leaders of key House GOP factions, according to four people granted anonymity to share details of private meetings — an effort to quell concerns among some conservatives about the narrow scope of the current plan. Arrington and other senior Republicans have been pushing to expand the party-line bill currently under discussion.
Johnson, Scalise and others in GOP leadership are promising that as soon as Republicans pass a bill funding immigration enforcement and some border patrol activities, they will get to work on another measure through the filibuster-skirting budget reconciliation process.
“We’re going to move right to reconciliation, what will now be 3.0,” Johnson said, referring both to the current plan and the tax and spending megabill Republicans passed last summer. “We’re going to do it as quickly as possible.”
Some of the ideas that circulated during the closed-door leadership meeting Thursday included opening up the possibility for more tax policy changes, addressing the Trump administration’s request for $350 billion for the Pentagon, additional funding for the Iran war and spending cuts across social programs in another package.
Arrington, who is among those wishing to expand the upcoming reconciliation effort, is seeking steep spending reductions to social programs and hopes to revisit Obamacare spending — including cost-sharing reductions, which would reduce out-of-pocket health costs.
Leadership of the Republican Study Committee, meanwhile, is demanding that any third reconciliation bill be fully paid for. There has been limited angst over “pay-fors” for the current party-line pursuit because the measure is an attempt to fund the immigration enforcement agencies and circumvent regular appropriations negotiations, which have been stuck for months.
But many Republicans are doubtful their party will be able to pass another party-line bill ahead of the midterms and see the immigration funding bill as their last bite at the apple. Some of them, including Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, are threatening to vote against the Senate budget resolution that would unlock the reconciliation process for the immigration funding measure unless it can incorporate more items from the hard-liners’ wishlist.
GOP leaders are now scrambling to stave off defections. Adoption of identical budget resolutions in both chambers will unlock the ability for lawmakers to write and pass a bill through reconciliation that would send tens of billions of dollars to immigration enforcement operations run through the Department of Homeland Security, which has been shuttered since February.
Republicans are on a very tight schedule to send this bill to Trump’s desk and pave the way for ending the record-setting DHS shutdown, given White House demands.
Congress
‘Junior reporters’ pepper Hakeem Jeffries with tough questions
Hakeem Jeffries celebrated Take Your Child to Work Day by taking questions from the children of the Capitol Hill press corps, but it got heavy fast.
The first question: “Why do voters view Democrats so poorly?”
Jeffries responded with a lengthy explanation of broad voter distrust in institutions.
“There’s a great frustration that applies to every organized institution in this country, and Democrats are not immune from that,” he said.
But, Jeffries added, “Consistently in state after state and race after race and contest after contest, irrefutably, the American people are choosing the Democratic Party.”
He fielded other tough questions from the “junior reporters” in the room, including if he would have voted to expel Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick if she hadn’t resigned earlier this week.
“She did the right thing in stepping down,” Jeffries said.
Other questions from kids in the room did tackle lighter subjects.
Jeffries’ favorite candy? Sugar-free Hershey’s chocolate.
What did he want to be when he grew up? A point guard for the Knicks or a hip-hop star.
Does he think the Yankees will win the World Series? “Hope springs eternal.”
And, simply, “What’s next?”
To that Jeffries said: “As Democrats, we’re fighting one battle after another, pushing back against the extremism that we believe is being released on the American people by Donald Trump and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle.”
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