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Contempt sought against US officials for alleged 'brazen defiance' of court order on foreign-aid funds

By Debra Cassens Weiss

February 20, 2025, 11:17 am CST

Updated: U.S. government defendants showed alleged “brazen defiance” of a federal judge’s order requiring continued funding of many foreign-aid programs and should be held in civil contempt, according to an emergency motion filed in one of two consolidated lawsuits.

The Public Citizen Litigation Group, a public interest law firm, filed the Feb. 19 motion on behalf of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition and the Journalism Development Network, according to a Feb. 19 press release.

U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali of the District of Columbia refused to hold government officials in contempt Thursday, saying it wasn’t warranted on the current record, Reuters reports.

In a Feb. 20 order, however, Ali said his TRO “does not permit defendants to simply continue their blanket suspension of congressionally appropriated foreign aid pending a review of the agreements for whether they should be continued or terminated.”

The contempt motion asked Ali to hold several government defendants in civil contempt and order penalties until they satisfy the terms of the court’s order. Ali was also asked to order the defendants to immediately rescind stop-work orders and fund terminations.

The targeted defendants were U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the OMB.

President Donald Trump is a defendant, but the motion does not seek to hold him in civil contempt. Ali’s Feb. 13 temporary restraining order did not apply to Trump.

The TRO barred the suspension of appropriated foreign assistance funds and barred stop-work orders in connection with those funding awards. Ali said, however, it would be overbroad to block the defendants from enforcing the terms of contracts that allow modifications or terminations.

In a Feb. 18 status report, the government said its contract and grant review indicated that nearly all the cutoffs and suspensions were allowed by terms of the agreements or implicitly incorporated into those terms. The report also said the Department of State thinks that it may terminate contracts and grants on its authority, even when those agreements don’t implicitly or explicitly address the issue.

The contempt motion says the government’s “remarkable assertion” that it had reviewed thousands of foreign-aid contracts in five days “strains credulity.” The motion also said the government defendants “continue to terminate foreign assistance awards without regard for the law or for this court’s order.”

The government said it did not violate the TRO in its Feb. 20 response to the contempt motion.

“The court should deny plaintiffs’ emergency motion and remind plaintiffs not to accuse defendants of contempt where they have not come close to submitting clear and convincing evidence that an unambiguous order has been violated,” the government response said.

Ali issued the TRO in two suits. Plaintiffs in the second consolidated suit, including the ABA, did not seek contempt.

The plaintiffs in the second suit did, however, file a Feb. 20 motion to enforce the TRO.

“Far from demonstrating compliance with the temporary restraining order issued by this court,” the motion said, the defendants’ status report “makes perfectly clear that they have made every effort to circumvent it, both in letter and in spirit. Indeed, since the court entered its order, defendants have not disbursed a single dollar of the hundreds of millions owed and due to plaintiffs.”

Reuters and Law360 are among the publications covering the contempt motion.

Updated Feb. 20 at 3:12 p.m. to account for a court filing correcting the list of targeted defendants and to add information on the government’s response to the contempt motion. Updated Feb. 21 at 7:30 a.m. to add information on U.S. District Judge Amir H. Ali’s denial of the contempt motion and the motion filed in the second lawsuit.

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