Trump’s administration again appeals to the Supreme Court over his foreign aid funding freeze

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration appealed to the Supreme Court again on Wednesday in its bid to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid funding frozen.

The Justice Department filed an emergency appeal seeking quick intervention to halt lower court decisions that have kept the money flowing, including for global health and HIV and AIDS programs.

The justices rebuffed the Trump administration on the issue earlier this year, but the court was divided 5-4. The justices have since sided with the administration in several high-profile cases.

The Republican administration says the funding at issue includes about $12 billion that would need to be spent by Sept. 30 if the lower court orders remain in place. A judge’s March order requiring the funding to continue wrongly interferes with negotiations between the president and Congress over the cuts, they argued.

Trump has portrayed the foreign aid as wasteful spending that does not align with his foreign policy goals.

A divided three-judge panel of the appeals court in Washington allowed the administration to suspend the funding earlier this month, but the full court declined to let the freeze snap into place immediately.

Nonprofit organizations that sued the government have said the funding freeze breaks federal law and has shut down funding for even the most urgent lifesaving programs abroad. Attorney Lauren Batemen said its been more than five months since the original order and the court should “see through the ruse” that the government would be harmed by having to comply with it.