A federal appeals court ruled Thursday to maintain a block on President Trump’s attempt to pause a large swath of federal spending, saying the administration has not been able to prove the orders are legal.
The three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said agencies can pause some spending but they crossed lines when they issued categorical freezes.
The ruling maintains a lower court judge’s injunction on the spending pause, which Mr. Trump ordered and his budget office attempted to carry out with a Jan. 27 memo.
A number of Democrat-led states had challenged the spending pause. The issue before the appeals court Thursday was whether to let the pause go into effect in some fashion, even as the case is being argued out in a lower court.
Chief Judge David J. Barron said the Department of Justice failed to make its case. He said they haven’t proved that the Office of Management and Budget’s actions are lawful, and the damage to the states was too great to allow the administration to proceed.
