Updated March 05, 2025 at 13:31 PM ET
The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday reined in some of the Trump administration's to .
By a 5-to-4 vote, the justices left in place a lower court order that so far has only required the Trump administration to pay contractors for foreign aid work that has already been completed 鈥� roughly $2 billion.
The case began two weeks ago when two major foreign aid contractors 鈥� the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Global Health Council 鈥� went to court to challenge the Trump administration's cutoff of funds at USAID and the State Department.
Federal Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, subsequently issued a temporary restraining order to allow the continuation of foreign aid funding while he examined the issues in the case.
Six days later, the Coalition went back to court seeking a contempt order for the administration's alleged failure to comply. Judge Ali instead ordered the government to immediately pay its foreign aid contractors for work already done. The Trump administration appealed to the Supreme Court to intervene, but the court refused to do that, at least for now.
Instead, in an unsigned order, the court noted that although Judge Ali's temporary restraining order has now expired, there are ongoing proceedings about whether he will make that order permanent.
Then the Court did something rather unusual. It gave Judge Ali some guidance on how to proceed, instructing him to "clarify what obligations the government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines." In other words, the court majority basically said: If you dot your I's and cross your T's, we've got your back.
The five justices in the majority were Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and the high court's three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The majority didn't say much in their one-page order, but the brief opinion may be construed as a message to lower court judges that the majority will back their decisions as long as they are careful and specific. Of course, the devil is always in the details.
The four dissenters were Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. Writing for them, Alito asked, "Does a single district court judge 鈥� have unchecked power to compel the government of the united states to pay out (and probably lose forever) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic 'No,' but a majority of this court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned."
Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Barrett, a Trump appointee, notably sided with the Court's three liberal justices to form the majority.
Wednesday's decision is likely to be the first of many that reach the Supreme Court this year, so it was notable Tuesday night that the four current Justices who attended the president's address looked distinctly and unusually uncomfortable, as they sat in their seats, barely moving, during the raucous and highly partisan event. The chief justice, who has repeatedly stressed the court's role as an independent legal arbiter, cannot have been happy when Trump, while leaving the chamber, stopped to shake hands with the members of the court, telling Roberts, "Thank you again, I won't forget," apparently referring to the chief justice's opinion last summer granting trump broad immunity from prosecution even while out of office.
Bottom line: There is a long and rocky road ahead for both men at the nation's highest court, a court that is itself, sharply divided.
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