The Trump administration must immediately unfreeze all $3 trillion in federal funds, a judge ruled Monday, finding it violated his temporary restraining order by keeping some of the dollars paused.
Blue state attorneys general showed evidence that the administration is still refusing to let funds flow, despite the federal judge’s Jan. 31 order to pause the administration’s plan. The Trump administration must ask McConnell for permission to pause funds in specific cases, the judge said.
“The Defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud,” Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in the US District Court for the District of Rhode Island wrote Monday. “But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud.”
The “broad categorical and sweeping” funding freeze is likely unconstitutional and is irreparably harming “a vast portion of this country,” McConnell wrote. “Persons who make private determinations of the law and refuse to obey an order generally risk criminal contempt even if the order is ultimately ruled incorrect,” he said, quoting the US Supreme Court’s ruling in Maness v. Meyers.
Trump Monday evening quickly filed a notice of appeal to the US Court of Appeals for the First Circuit.
The states in a Feb. 7 filing wrote that greenhouse gas reduction, air monitoring, solar energy, dementia research, and HIV prevention programs were among those still locked out of receiving federal dollars.
The administration must immediately clear all hurdles to restoring the funds until the court decides on the state’s motion for a preliminary injunction, the judge said.
He singled out as examples funds appropriated in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Infrastructure Improvement and Jobs Act, as well as funds for institutes and executive agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health.
McConnell took issue with the administration’s position in a court filing that his order had ambiguous terms that intruded on the executive branch’s authority.
“The Court’s TRO is clear and unambiguous in its scope and effect,” McConnell wrote in a footnote.
Trump’s most aggressive policy moves have been paused in federal courts across the country as judges weigh their legality.
The case is New York v. Trump, D.R.I., No. 1:25-cv-00039, 2/10/25.
