How the Trump administration is ignoring judicial orders halting blanket payment bans

Federal judges have issued injunctions against President Trump's Federal payment bans, for example for foreign aid.   But payments haven't resumed. It turns out that bureaucracies have big strategy sets (and, nowadays, some contempt for courts).

Each foreign aid contract, for example, typically has a clause that allows payments to be ended if the terms of the contract are violated.  So newly appointed heads of agencies are  claiming that all contracts were uniformly being violated, or must be certified as in compliance before payments (on each particular contract, not as part of any blanket order, no sir) can be resumed.

The NYT has the story:

Trump Team Finds Loophole to Defy Spirit of Court Orders Blocking Spending Freezes. Officials cite other legal authorities — not Mr. Trump’s court-blocked directives — to keep withholding foreign aid and domestic grant money.  By Charlie Savage

"The Trump administration is systematically exploiting loopholes to effectively keep much of the president’s blanket spending freezes in place, accounts by officials and court filings show, despite restraining orders from judges who have told agencies to disregard the directives.

"The administration’s strategy is to have political appointees embedded in various agencies invoke other legal authorities to pause spending, while posturing as if those officials had undertaken the efforts independent of President Trump’s original directives.

"In short, critics say, administration officials are paying lip service to complying with the letter of the court orders while violating their spirit. The tactic shows how aggressively and nimbly the Trump administration is working to keep funds jammed up, and the complexity judges face if they want to compel the administration to unblock the money."