This Is Not The Court Victory You Are Looking For 🫣

Holy sh*t!

The Supreme Court just denied Donald Trump‘s bid to cancel around $2 billion in USAID spending in a 5-4 vote.

Rare SCOTUS win!

Cue Donald’s unhinged all-caps meltdown.

🍿

— Art Candee 🍿🥤 (@ArtCandee) March 5, 2025

 No, the majority (with Roberts and Barrett) sent the back to the trial court, effectively denying the appeal:

On February 25, the District Court ordered the Government to issue payments for a portion of the paused disbursements—those owed for work already completed before the issuance of the District Court’s temporary restraining order—by 11:59 p.m. on February 26. Several hours before that deadline, the Government filed this application to vacate the District Court’s February 25 order and requested an immediate administrative stay. THE CHIEF JUSTICE entered an administrative stay shortly before the 11:59 p.m. deadline and subsequently referred the application to the Court. The application is denied. Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should 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. The order heretofore entered by THE CHIEF JUSTICE is vacated

Let me point out the highlighted portion is a finding of the lower court as grounds for its order. As such, it must be respected and accepted by the appellate courts. Appellate courts don’t do fact-finding. They accept the facts determined by the trial court. Unless you’re Justice Scalia (joined by Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Thomas):

Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the 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.

The legal argument isn’t any more clear. The legal basis elucidated in the dissent turns on questions of sovereign immunity (misapplied here*) and procedural law.  I won't bore you with the details.  Concentrate on that summary, and you see the paucity of the argument, starting with the claimed jurisidictional infirmity.

Jurisdiction is so fundamental it can be raised in the Supreme Court for the first time (most error must be asserted in the trial court to be considered on appeal).  That's why Scalia mentions it, then discards it like a spent Kleenex.  Nothing in the rest of the dissenting opinion even mentions the word, much less the concept (except implicitly, in the entirely-for-convenience argument on sovereign immunity).  I like the mention of a "single district court."  What, would multiple district courts somehow acquire both jurisdiction (not a tenet of jurisdiction jurisprudence) and the "unchecked power to compel the government ," etc., etc.? Except, of course, the power is not "unchecked." The majority sends the case back with the directive that:

the District Court should 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.

And will the taxpayer "lose" ("probably forever") $2 billion?  Maybe, if the dissenting justices disagree with the Congressional allocation of funds.  But why should a single Supreme Court have the jurisdiction or literally "unchecked power" to tell the Congress we don't like the way you’re spending money?  Aside from the fact they are duly appointed to their positions by law, unlike the manic children operating DOGE?

The answer to that question should be an emphatic “No,” but a minority of the Court apparently thinks otherwise. I am stunned.  But only by their arrogance.  That, and the absolute paucity of a legal argument for their position, except "We're Supreme Court Justices, bitches!"

Never was that title more ironic and misapplied.

* 

Sovereign immunity bars “a suit by private parties seeking to impose a liability which must be paid from public funds in the . . . treasury.” Edelman v. Jordan, 415 U. S. 651, 663 (1974). But that is exactly what the District Court ordered here. See App. to Application to Vacate Order 85a–86a (“[T]he restrained defendants shall pay all invoices andletter of credit drawdown requests on all contracts for work

completed prior to the entry of the Court’s TRO on February 13”).

Except these are not "public funds in the....treasurry."  These are allocated funds by Congress.  This is not a cash grab based on a civil claim for damages.  This is a suit for enforcement of a legal claim on that money, one impeded by actors with no legal claim to governmental authority. The question raised is: can the Administration freeze payment of such funds, and on what legal basis?  Answer comes there none; at least from the dissent.  The implied answer is:  if that's what the "government" (here, unelected, unappointed non-government employees working under a vague presidential directive) wants, that's good enough for us.  And we don' need no steenken' "findings of fact"!.