22 US ATTORNEYS GENERAL vs TRUMP’s Farce on USAID. White House blocked Humanitarian Funds but not Military Aid to Kiev
In the cover image a past meeting between Ukrainian President Zelensky and US President Trump during his first term (2017-2020)
By Carlo Domenico Cristofori
The thorny issues of the overwhelming initiatives of the new president Donald Trump are coming to a head. After having tried to eliminate USAID funding with an executive order subsequently blocked by a judge, he attempted to close the US Agency for International Development for its criminal projects culminating in the financing of the 2014 coup in Kiev.
Plans known to himself since his first presidential term in 2017 (which cost him impeachment in the UkraineGate) but in order not to betray the trust of the Arms Lobby that benefited from this infamous geopolitical project and the subsequent conflict between Ukraine and Russia, he has already announced that military aid to the neo-Nazi regime of Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky will continue.
US President Donald Trump has said that he plans to hold a meeting with Vladimir Zelensky next week, with Washington as the potential venue.
“I will probably be meeting with <…> Zelensky next week, and I will probably be talking to [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin,” the US leader said before talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in the White House. “He [Zelensky] may meet [with me] next week, whatever he’s like, I’m here.”
This tragic contradiction has not escaped the eyes of some American attorneys general who have decided to start a legal battle against the Trump administration…
Dozens of States Ask Court to Enforce Restraining Order on Trump’s Funding Freeze
«A coalition of attorneys general from 22 states and the District of Columbia filed an emergency motion on Friday for the enforcement of a restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s funding freeze»
The Epoch Times has reported.
The attorneys general said that they have observed “an ever-changing kaleidoscope of federal financial assistance that has been suspended, deleted, in transit, under review, and more since entry of the order.”
“These conditions persist today,” they stated in the motion. “And, while it is imaginable that a certain amount of machinery would need to be re-tooled in order to undo the breadth of the federal funding freeze, there is no world in which these scattershot outages, which as of this writing impact billions of dollars in federal funding across the plaintiff states, can constitute compliance with this court’s order.”
The motion states that the Trump administration has failed to fully comply with the order as access to federal funds under the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and the Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act (IIJA) remained blocked.
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The attorneys general joining Jennings in the lawsuit include those from Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Nevada, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.
These funds include $5 billion for supporting states, tribes, and local governments in greenhouse gas reduction efforts; $117.5 million for an air monitoring and research program; $4.5 billion for a home electrification and appliances rebate program; and $7 billion for rooftop and community solar energy projects.
The attorneys general said that as of Feb. 5, grant accounts were still unavailable for disbursements and federal grantor agencies replied to state agency inquiries “with receipt-acknowledging non-answers or not replied at all.” Meetings with agency grant offices were also frequently canceled, they stated.
According to the motion, the Trump administration explained that certain federal funds fall outside the scope of the court’s order, which were frozen pursuant to another memo issued by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that the states had not challenged.
“Trump administration cited unspecified operation and administrative reasons for the delays in some funding”
The Trump administration also cited “unspecified operation and administrative reasons” for the delays in some funding, the motion stated.
The attorneys general said that while they do not currently intend to seek any sanction, they asked the court to require the administration to “take every step necessary to effectuate the order, including clearing any administrative, operational, or technical hurdles to implementation.”
“These funds are not monopoly money, and this is not a game,” Delaware Attorney General Kathy Jennings, one of the plaintiffs, said in a statement. “Real people are suffering, and will continue to suffer incredible damages from the disruption of these vital funds.”
The states filed the lawsuit on Jan. 28 after OMB issued a memo directing federal agencies to suspend the distribution of grants, loans, and other financial assistance while the programs were being reviewed to ensure they aligned with President Donald Trump’s policy priorities. OMB rescinded the memo on Jan. 29 after a federal judge in Washington issued a temporary restraining order.
In issuing his order on Jan. 31, McConnell said the rescission was “in name only and may have been issued simply to defeat the jurisdiction of the courts,” citing a social media post from White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt that said a federal funding freeze remains in effect.
McConnell said the states were likely to succeed in their lawsuit and that Trump violated the Administrative Procedures Act by imposing conditions on funding that Congress instructed the executive to provide to them.
Judge blocks Trump plan to put thousands of USAID staff on leave
A judge has temporarily blocked President Donald Trump from placing 2,200 workers at the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on paid leave, hours before it was due to happen. Judge Carl Nichols issued a “limited” temporary restraining order, in response to a last-minute lawsuit filed by two unions trying to save the agency.
The order will remain in place for a week, until 14 February at midnight. Trump has argued that USAID, the overseas aid agency, is not a valuable use of taxpayer money and wants to dismantle it – with plans to put nearly all of the agency’s 10,000 employees on leave, except 611 workers.
Some 500 staff had already been put on administrative leave and another 2,200 were due to join them from midnight on Friday (05:00 GMT).But the last-minute lawsuit on Friday argued the government was violating the US Constitution, and also that the workers were suffering harm.
Judge Nichols sided with the unions, saying they would suffer “irreparable harm” if the court did not intervene, while there would be “zero harm to the government”. The order also reinstates the 500 staff already placed on administrative leave.
“All USAID employees currently on administrative leave shall be reinstated until that date, and shall be given complete access to email, payment, and security notification systems until that date, and no additional employees shall be placed on administrative leave before that date,” Nichols wrote.
The judge will also consider a request for a longer-term pause at a hearing on Wednesday. It is unclear from the court order what will happen to the agency’s remaining staff.
US to continue foreign aid despite USAID liquidation
The United States will continue to provide assistance to foreign countries despite the liquidation of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at a press conference.
“We are going to do foreign aid. The United States will be providing foreign aid, but it is going to be foreign aid that makes sense and is aligned with our national interests,” the top US diplomat said.
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Commenting on the decision to suspend USAID, Rubio pointed out that the administration of US President Donald Trump sought to “identify programs that work and continue them, and to identify programs that are not aligned with our national interest and identify those and address them.” He explained that a number of international support programs would not fall under the USAID suspension order. The top US diplomat added that the administration was “working through the process of identifying them.
Ukraine open to exchanging minerals for US military aid, says Zelenskyy
Ukraine is open to “investment” from allies as long as they help it fight Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says, after Donald Trump demanded Kyiv supply the US with rare earth resources – critical elements used in electronics – in exchange for military aid.
The US president’s proposal has been criticised as exploiting Russia’s invasion for material gain, with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, calling the plan “selfish”. However, Ukrainian media reported that the idea may have originated in Kyiv as an incentive to keep weapon shipments flowing into the country.
Speaking to reporters at the White House on Monday, Trump said he wanted “equalisation” from Ukraine for Washington’s “close to $300bn” in support. “We’re telling Ukraine they have very valuable rare earths,” Trump said. “We’re looking to do a deal with Ukraine where they’re going to secure what we’re giving them with their rare earths and other things.”
“As President Trump shared yesterday, the United States needs to recoup any money it spends or has spent on Ukraine aid. The discussions over the weekend centered around how best to ensure that repayment, and a timetable has yet to be established,” NBC News television reports, citing Brian Hughes, a spokesperson for the White House’s National Security Council
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