Days after federal judges ordered the White House to restore federal funding it paused with the Office of Management and Budget memo, some groups say they still cannot access funds, leaving them to question if the administration intends to skirt the power of the judicial branch.
Trump and administration officials believe in the broadest possible interpretation of presidential power. Critics wonder if flooding the system with executive orders that test the limits of the office is a deliberate effort to circumvent court power by overwhelming it — and whether those checks will hold.
“The bottom line is this,” Peter Neronha, the attorney general of Rhode Island, told NOTUS Wednesday, “is the failure to turn the money back on a function of the federal government being this enormous engine that just takes time, once it’s been shut off, to come back on? Or is it a deliberate and intentional rejection or failure to follow the court’s order?”