The US Supreme Court has rejected a request by the Trump administration to withhold nearly $2bn (£1.6bn) in payments to foreign aid organisations for work they have already performed for the government.
Since taking office, President Donald Trump has cut numerous aid programmes and placed most USAID staff on leave or dismissed them.
In a 5-4 decision Chief Justice John Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberal justices in leaving in place a ruling from a US district judge last month, which ordered the administration to unfreeze the nearly $2bn in aid for work that had already been done, and that had been approved by Congress.
Staunch conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett was picked by President Donald Trump for the Supreme Court.
Justice Barrett was among the justices who rejected the Trump administration’s attempt to avoid paying federal contractors as part of the gutting of the US’ foreign aid programme.
“She is a rattled law professor with her head up her a**,” said Mike Davis, who once worked for another Supreme Court justice, describing Justice Barrett was “weak and timid”.
Four of the court’s conservative justices, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, dissented from the decision.
Alito expressed that he was “stunned” by the majority’s decision.
“Does a single district-court judge who likely lacks jurisdiction have the unchecked power to compel the Government of the United States to pay out (and probably lose forever) billion[s in] taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise,” he wrote.
Amy Coney Barrett
It appears that even being handpicked to the top court of the land, by Trump, doesn’t mean you like him, as you can see in the clip (below).
Long-time Trump ally Steve Bannon suggested Barrett had given Trump the “stink eye.”
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Or maybe it was this?
