Supreme Court won't lift lower court order unfreezing foreign aid funds

[onenote]

18. You are mistaken. The full court did not issue the original administrative stay.

Last edited Wed Mar 5, 2025, 12:11 PM - Edit history (1)

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to vacate the district court order unfreezing the funds. They also sought an administrative stay while that request was considered by the Court. The request for an order vacating the district court decision and for an administrative stay pending a decision was made to CJ Roberts who granted the administrative stay and referred the underlying "vacatur" request to the full Court. This was and is standard operating procedure. Requests for emergency relief can be submitted to and acted on by a single justice. Because the district court decision at issue came from the US District Court for the District of Columbia, the emergency relief request had to be submitted to him -- as the justice assigned to the DC federal courts -- in the first instance. His decision to grant the administrative stay was unsurprising, since if he had denied it, the Trump administration could then have immediately renewed their request before any of the other justices. The only time the full court considered the administration's emergency relief request was after the administrative stay was granted and the underlying request for vacatur had been fully briefed.