Kyle Cheney: Breaking: Fed Judge determines Trump admin violating order lifting blanket freeze on fed grant programs

[Dennis Donovan]

Kyle Cheney
‪@kyledcheney.bsky.social‬
BREAKING: A federal judge has determined that the Trump administration is violating his order lifting the blanket spending freeze on federal grant programs.

He is orderin gthe administration to immediately unfreeze funds, including for NIH and the IRA. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

February 10, 2025 at 12:31 PM

https://bsky.app/profile/kyledcheney.bsky.social/post/3lhtodfvvsc23

[Sanity Claws]

1. Constitutional crisis only 3 weeks into his term

[dalton99a]

2. Trump will tell the gang to ignore this new order

[sakabatou]

6. Yup.

[mobeau69]

3. Impeach him.

[littlemissmartypants]

14. We don't have the votes.

[thesquanderer]

24. He could be impeached for failure to "faithfully execute the office of President and to uphold the Constitution"...

if it wasn't a Republican House. And even we somehow got past that, to remove, you'd need 2/3 of the (majority Republican) Senate.

But it would be nice to even hear him referred to as thrice-impeached.

[surfered]

4. We will see if the Trump complies with the Court's Order.

If not, we are in uncharted and very dangerous territory.

[mobeau69]

23. Yep, scary to even think about.

[dchill]

5. "...or ELSE!"

[drmeow]

7. Can judges start fining

and pulling money out of Musks accounts or freezing his assets if they don't comply and Federal Marshalls don't act?

[ananda]

19. Could they just ignore that too?

I like that idea.

[mobeau69]

22. (Historically) banks obey court orders.

[UTUSN]

8. K&R

[flashman13]

9. Just 24 hours after I posted that Trump and Musk would defy the court's orders it has happened.

This is now officially a coup by every definition of the word.

Good night and Good Luck.

[FoggyLake]

10. or else... what?

So far there is no one to constrain them from doing whatever they want.

[Quanto Magnus]

11. And Trump will continue to ignore it...

And Schumer will write a sternly worded letter....

Collins will get the vapors....

Trump will crap his pants some more and the Nazi's will rejoice...

[moonshinegnomie]

12. if they dont comply

the judge should start sending bailiffs to haul every person vioalting the order into court. the orange fascist might be immune but i doubt that his cronies like the idea of spending time locked up. start with the treasury secretary and teh OMB head.

lock them up for civil contempt. there is no pardon ability for it. and the judge can keep them locked up until they comply

[angrychair]

13. Unfortunately

How it works is the judge would send an order to the US Marshals Service to arrest the person but since the Marshals work for DOJ, the AG can just order them to ignore the judge. If they follow that I don't know but I assume that is how that would go down.

It's a serious constitutional crisis.

[FB47243]

15. Pardon Power

Actually, the president can pardon someone for civil contempt charges, but there are limits.

The U.S. Constitution grants the president broad pardon powers for federal offenses (Article II, Section 2). Civil contempt can sometimes be considered a federal offense, especially if it’s linked to a federal court order. However, if the contempt charge is coercive (meant to force compliance, like refusing to testify), a pardon might not immediately free the person—courts could reframe the punishment to continue enforcing compliance.

In contrast, state-level civil contempt is outside the president’s pardon power. Governors handle pardons for state cases.

So, while there are nuances, the president does have the ability to pardon civil contempt in many cases, particularly at the federal level.

[JCMach1]

17. Exactly contempt is it's own thing

[Dennis Donovan]

16. NBC News: Judge finds Trump administration violated court order halting funding freeze

NBC News - Judge finds Trump administration violated court order halting funding freeze

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said the government has not restored funding in several programs despite his Jan. 31 order temporarily halting the freeze.

Feb. 10, 2025, 2:05 PM EST
By Chloe Atkins, Fallon Gallagher and Dareh Gregorian

A federal judge in Rhode Island Monday said that the Trump administration violated his order halting a sweeping federal funding freeze and ordered the government to “immediately restore frozen funding.”

U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell handed down the order after the plaintiffs in the case, a coalition of 22 states, said the government had not restored funding in several programs despite his Jan. 31 order temporarily halting the wide-ranging Office of Management and Budget directive that had caused chaos and confusion across the country.

“The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds,” McConnell wrote, even though his order lifting the freeze had been "clear and unambiguous."

Justice Department lawyers argued in a court filing that they didn't believe the order covered some of the frozen funding, and that some of the funding at issue is under review to make sure it's "appropriate.

"The Defendants now plea that they are just trying to root out fraud. But the freezes in effect now were a result of the broad categorical order, not a specific finding of possible fraud," McConnell wrote. "The broad categorical and sweeping freeze of federal funds is, as the Court found, likely unconstitutional and has caused and continues to cause irreparable harm to a vast portion of this country."

/snip

[orangecrush]

18. And if they don't

Then what?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

20. Which one is this? I'm getting confused. NT

[spanone]

21. SEND THE MARSHALLS TO THE WHITEHOUSE

[thesquanderer]

26. Trump's DOJ isn't sending marshalls anywhere he doesn't want them to go. (n/t)

[Tickle]

25. He's going to appeal until he

Gets to supreme court

[returnee]

27. Question:

In order to stop the flow of already allocated funds, don’t they have to go through the Treasury Dept. to do it? Does this mean that Bessent or Musk et al or both are actually stopping the funds this way?

Pardon my ignorance on this.