So for those who weren't following this for last two days, what happened in short is a federal district court judge ordered Trump Administration to pay out about $2 billion in money under contracts, etc. by midnight tonight purportedly to enforce Temporary Restraining Order. 1/ https://t.co/GLbrDzFCTG
— Margot Cleveland (@ProfMJCleveland) February 27, 2025
So for those who weren't following this for last two days, what happened in short is a federal district court judge ordered Trump Administration to pay out about $2 billion in money under contracts, etc. by midnight tonight purportedly to enforce Temporary Restraining Order. 1/2/ Trump Administration basically said: a) we couldn't if we wanted to; b) this Court lacks authority to make us pay money on contracts b/c we have sovereign immunity (i.e., we didn't give you permission to sue us), you have to sue in Court of Claims.3/ TROs aren't generally appealable but this was a court order to do something so it should be appealable now, but when Trump appealed to D.C. Circuit, the Court refused to hear appeal & tossed case. Trump had hedged bets & also asked SCOTUS to stop judge's unlawful order.4/ Justice Robert's granted an "Administrative Stay" basically freezing the lower court's order mandating compliance by midnight. This is huge because SCOTUS doesn't normally get involved in cases, and definitely not at such an early stage where it is before district court.5/ But as I said yesterday when Judge did this, all hell was about to break loose and Justice Roberts likely recognized that reality: They cannot let a lone district court judge control the Executive Branch where the order is so clearly beyond the judge's authority to issue.6/ Shame on D.C. Circuit panel (Obama & 2 Biden judges) who didn't see the huge need to stop this farce.
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