UPDATE (Feb. 21, 2025, 8:31 a.m. ET): On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali declined to hold government defendants in contempt but ordered them to comply with his earlier order to lift the foreign aid freeze as litigation continues.
Ali wrote: “[T]o the extent Defendants have continued the blanket suspension, they are ordered to immediately cease it and to take all necessary steps to honor the terms of contracts, grants, cooperative agreements, loans, and other federal foreign assistance awards that were in existence as of January 19, 2025, including but not limited to disbursing all funds payable under those terms.”
UPDATE (Feb. 20, 2025, 1:25 p.m. ET): On Thursday, federal government defendants wrote to U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in opposition to a motion seeking to hold them in contempt for violating a court order in litigation over the Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze. “The Court should deny Plaintiffs’ Emergency Motion and remind Plaintiffs not to accuse Defendants of contempt where they have not come close to submitting clear and convincing evidence that an unambiguous order has been violated,” the government wrote.
Will Trump administration officials be held in contempt? And what would that look like, exactly?
We may find out soon, with an emergency motion seeking that relief pending in federal court in the District of Columbia.
The motion comes in litigation over the administration’s blanket foreign aid freeze, in a lawsuit from health and journalistic nonprofits that receive federal grant money for foreign assistance work.
U.S. District Judge Amir Ali had issued a temporary restraining order against the government on Feb. 13, specifically as to Marco Rubio, Peter Marocco, Russell Vought and their respective agencies, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Office of Management and Budget.
But the plaintiffs say the government defendants are violating Ali’s order, and they want the Biden-appointed judge to do something about it. Their proposed contempt order suggests tens of thousands of dollars a day in penalties until the defendants comply.
They wrote to the judge on Wednesday that, despite his restraining order, the government defendants have nonetheless concluded that terminating nearly all foreign assistance funding was legal.
“This Court should not brook such brazen defiance of the express terms of its order,” the plaintiffs wrote, asking Ali to order the government defendants to:
immediately comply, today, with the terms of the TRO [temporary restraining order] by rescinding all suspensions, stop-work orders, and terminations issued since January 19, 2025. It should also order Defendants to immediately reimburse, today, foreign assistance recipients for work already performed and to promptly pay such recipients for work going forward. And the Court should issue an order finding Defendants in civil contempt and imposing specific penalties until Defendants comply with the Court’s order.
Ali ordered the government defendants to respond to the contempt motion by 1 p.m. ET on Thursday. In a status report filed prior to the motion, the government maintained that it’s complying with the order but raised questions about how far it extends. So at the very least, the contempt motion could prompt further explanation from the judge about how he views his order and the defendants’ compliance with it, even if he doesn’t wind up going as far as to hold them in contempt.
But if the judge’s view is anything like the plaintiffs’, then the Trump administration’s actions will have caused an escalation in the saga over its compliance — or lack thereof — with court orders.
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