The Trump Justice Department filed a court order with the federal judge in Rhode Island who issued a temporary restraining order last Friday blocking the Office of Management and Budget’s federal funding freeze memorandum. The Trump Administration said that it interpreted the Rhode Island judge’s order as not “enjoining the President’s Executive Orders, which are plainly lawful and unchallenged in this case.” Adding to the ongoing confusion over the freeze, the White House, however, sent out guidance to agencies instructing them that “federal agencies cannot pause, freeze, impede, block, cancel, or terminate any awards or obligations on the basis of the OMB memo, or on the basis of the President’s recently issued Executive Orders.”
The moves come as a separate district court judge in the D.C. District Court on Monday extended her injunction against the OMB memo after expressing concern that the blanket freeze on federal spending may be lingering at some agencies despite two court orders to pause it during ongoing lawsuits. Relatedly, as the March 14th government funding deadline approaches, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) said that President Trump’s federal funding freeze “must be choked off” as part of any bipartisan deal to keep the government open, “if not sooner.”