A federal appeals court Wednesday rejected a bid by humanitarian groups to challenge the Trump administration’s freeze on foreign aid grants.
The ruling overturned a district judge’s injunction that had directed the administration to restore the flow of the grants.
In the split decision, a three-judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals didn’t consider the merits of the aid groups’ arguments that President Donald Trump illegally impounded congressionally appropriated funding. The majority instead vacated the injunction on procedural grounds. It found that the grantees couldn’t bring a constitutional claim that hinged on an alleged violation of law.
Under federal law, only the U.S. comptroller general can challenge an impoundment of funds by the president, Judge Karen Henderson, a George H.W. Bush appointee, wrote in the majority opinion. The comptroller general leads the Government Accountability Office, which is housed in the legislative branch and monitors the way the federal government spends congressional appropriations.
Comptrollers general are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate. They serve for 15-year terms and cannot be reappointed. The current comptroller general is Gene Dodaro, who was nominated by Barack Obama in 2010, and his term expires later this year.
The Impoundment Control Act, Henderson wrote, outlines a notification process between the GAO and lawmakers that must be carried out before the comptroller general can sue the president over an alleged impoundment.
“It does not make sense that the Congress would craft a complex scheme of interbranch dialogue but sub silentio also provide a backdoor for citizen suits at any time and without notice to the Congress of the alleged violation,” Henderson wrote.
Supreme Court precedent has “rejected the idea that a plaintiff may transform a statutory claim into a constitutional one to avoid limits on judicial review,” she wrote.
A spokesperson for the Global Health Council, the lawsuit’s lead plaintiff, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump officials applauded the ruling on social media.
“Radical left-wing groups have been abusing the court system in an attempt to seize control of U.S. foreign policy from the President,” the Office of Management and Budget posted on X. “Today’s decision puts a stop to that, affirming the President’s ability to spend responsibly to enact his America First agenda.”
Judge Florence Pan, a Biden appointee, rejected the majority’s conclusion in her dissent, claiming her colleagues “compensate for the government’s litigation missteps by … reframing the case.”
“The majority holds that when the President refuses to spend funds appropriated by Congress based on policy disagreements, that is merely a statutory violation and raises no constitutional alarm bells,” Pan wrote in her lengthy dissent.
Their opinion, she wrote, “misconstrues the separation-of-powers claim brought by the grantees, misapplies precedent, and allows Executive Branch officials to evade judicial review of constitutionally impermissible actions.”
What’s next: The case goes back to the district court for further proceedings that account for the appellate judges’ opinion.
Kyle Cheney contributed to this report.
