A couple of truth bombs about today's decision by SCOTUS on the TRO issued by Judge Ali:
The DOJ never appealed the original TRO entered by him. Rather than do that, they opted to "maneuver" around thru a hole he left in his order that allowed them to rely on statutes/regs/ contract terms to delay making the payments.
Right or wrong - they didn't appeal his decision outright, which is one of the things the Plaintiff's pointed out to the Supreme Court. The only appeal was of his Feb. 25 Order that the payments be made by Feb. 26 at 11:59 pm.
Second, Roberts stepped in when there were 2 hours left and there was much uncertainty about whether the payments could be made as directed by Judge Ali on a logistical basis.
That issue is dealt with by today Order.
Judge Ali is directed by the Order to be specific about what claims his order covers and he needs to consider the logistical problems of making the payments in fashioning a new order.
"Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines."
The Govt will surely appeal any subsequent order that directs it to pay parties who are not before the Court.
So, don't read more into the Order than is there.
Yes, it would have been nice for the Court to simply vacate the TRO. But that would not have solved the problem. As the Order notes, the Preliminary Injunction proceedings are ongoing.
The briefing on that is complete and a hearing was supposed to take place yesterday. I expect Judge Ali will now hold that hearing since his TRO expires on 3/10 -- 5 days.
The jurisdictional issues are raised in the briefing so Judge Ali is going have to confront them as part of any decision he makes.
None of that was before the SCOTUS in a properly briefed form.
Roberts always prefers regular order. He stepped in because the order to pay by 11:59 that night was the problem.
The other issues can all be dealt with in regular order -- let Judge Ali enter his TRO, the Govt appeals the TRO to the Circuit Court, and then the case gets to SCOTUS on the merits.
— Shipwreckedcrew (@shipwreckedcrew) March 5, 2025
In all of these TRO/Injunction cases, has the DoJ requested injunction bonds? If not, why not?
I’ll go a step further and note the order pertains to prior work on contracts supposedly covered ... meaning that say a contract was in place (fraudulent or not) and the gov had already been billed for work completed, I’d consider that rightly allowable up until the point Trump admin pulls + cancels the project. Consider a valid program that is in place when a lib comes in and wants to axe the legit program to use the money for sex changes in Liberia - I’d hope, in that case, the legit funding to legit orgs would remain OK and, then, when a new admin comes in, everything can be reset. Consistently applied this would be OK with me. The grants + contracts, on their merits, are another issue. But my reading of ACB was she was distinguishing previous work billed but left unpaid. If that’s her niche then the other things apply as well. There is an old adage for weasel judges to get things off the docket through procedural mechanisms so they don’t have to make actual decisions.
GOOD rundown!
Someone commented BTT that
“...
The SC decision suggested that if the Trump Administration were to file a challenge against the whole decision (i.e. the legitimacy of the court to make the ruling) instead of just the TRO the Court might take that question up.
“
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4302296/posts?page=13#13
a Fed TRO, with rare exceptions, cannot be appealed to a higher court. But they also typically expire in two weeks or less.
decent read here; https://www.vox.com/scotus/399265/supreme-court-lawsuits-donald-trump-appeals
I’m sick of Roberts and the others using stupid technical grounds to refuse to resolve important questions (and always to the benefit of the left), the many 2A cases are big examples of it.
The Justices involved should be impeached for misfeasance.