Four conservative Supreme Court justices penned a blistering dissent Wednesday after the court majority rejected the Trump administration’s request to continue a temporary freeze on foreign aid payments. 

​​Justice Samuel Alito excoriated the high court majority for allowing a lower court judge to single-handedly determine the timeline for the Trump administration to pay nearly $2 million in payments for previously completed foreign aid projects – an order he called ‘too extreme.’ 

In a scathing eight-page dissent, Alito called the decision an ‘unfortunate misstep’ and one he said ‘rewards an act of judicial hubris’ by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali.

‘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) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise,’ Alito wrote.

‘I am stunned.’

He was joined in the dissent by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. 

While Alito and the other dissenting justices acknowledged Wednesday that the plaintiffs raised ‘serious concerns about nonpayment’ for their completed work, they argued that Ali’s repayment order and time frame was ‘too extreme,’ as it gave the administration just two weeks to comply.

‘The District Court has made plain its frustration with the Government, and respondents raise serious concerns about nonpayment for completed work,’ they said in their dissent. ‘But the relief ordered is, quite simply, too extreme a response.’

The 5-4 Supreme Court decision remands the case back to the D.C. federal court – and Judge Ali – to hash out the specifics of what must be paid, and when.

At issue in the case was how quickly the Trump administration needed to pay the nearly $2 billion owed to aid groups and contractors for completed projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), at a time when the administration has issued a blanket freeze on all foreign spending in the name of government ‘efficiency’ and eliminating waste.

The funds had been frozen as part of the administration’s block on all foreign aid, prompting international groups and contractors to file a lawsuit last month, prompting the Trump administration to file an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts intervened, agreeing to pause the timeline to allow the full court to consider the case.

Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued that while the plaintiffs’ claims were likely ‘legitimate,’ the time set by Ali was ‘impossible’ and ‘not logistically or technically feasible.’

Ali, for his part, moved quickly Wednesday to take action on the unpaid foreign aid case – setting a new court hearing Thursday afternoon to consider the matter.

In a minute order, the court said lawyers for both parties should come prepared to discuss a proposed schedule for the Trump administration to comply with the outstanding payments.

Fox News’ Jake Gibson contributed to this report. 

Federal Judge Beryl Howell is considering whether President Donald Trump’s firing of National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox was illegal. 

This case is similar to those of Merit Systems Protection Board Chairperson Cathy Harris and Hampton Dellinger, who heads the Office of the Special Counsel.

Howell acknowledged that this case seems destined for higher courts, maybe even the highest. ‘I realize for both sides this court is merely a speedbump to get to the Supreme Court.’

Lawyers for Wilcox maintain that congressional statute dictates that appointed NLRB board members can only be removed from office for neglect of duty or malfeasance, and that Trump attempted to remove her without cause. According to the plaintiffs, Trump is the first president to attempt to remove an NLRB member.

Howell pointed out that the president has broad powers under Article II to make personnel decisions within the executive branch, asking lawyers for Wilcox whether it was within the powers of a federal judge to step in and block those powers.

‘Congress is elected too,’ said Deepak Gupta, arguing for Wilcox, ‘We don’t have an elected king. Congress makes the law. The president enforces those laws.’

DOJ lawyer Harry Graver argued for the government and agreed that the president did not attempt to fire Wilcox for malfeasance or neglect, but that the president has the power to hire and fire within the administration.

Howell seemed to bristle at Graver’s view of presidential power. ‘Anybody in the executive branch is subject to removal by the president? That is the most extreme version of the unitary executive theory I have ever heard.’

Howell took the arguments and briefings under advisement and is expected to make a ruling in the coming days. For now, Gwynne Wilcox remains out of her job, and the NLRB remains without a quorum, so it cannot resolve any labor disputes.

The Trump administration’s Treasury Department is in the midst of weighing a ‘wide range’ of possibilities to streamline the Internal Revenue Service amid reports up to half of the IRS staff could be terminated, Fox News Digital learned Wednesday.

‘In line with the Trump administration’s focus on efficiency and deficit reduction, the Treasury Department is considering a wide range of possible streamlining initiatives,’ a Treasury spokesperson told Fox News Digital Wednesday afternoon. 

‘While no plan has been approved to date, modernization is necessary to keep up with the process by which Americans file their taxes, including the reality that over 90% of individual tax returns are filed electronically,’ the spokesperson continued. ‘These changes are aimed at improving taxpayer customer service and ensuring a smooth and successful filing season.’ 

The Treasury Department spokesperson spoke to Fox News Digital amid reports that up to half of the IRS’ roughly 90,000-person staff could be terminated.

The nation’s tax agency was drafting plans for the terminations as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s mission to audit federal agencies and remove government overspending, mismanagement and fraud, the Associated Press reported Tuesday. 

Thousands of employees across various agencies – including the Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Agency for International Development and the Department of Energy – have been terminated as the Trump administration works to slim down the federal government and realign its agencies with Trump’s ‘America First’ policies. Agencies notably have terminated probationary employees who have not yet achieved full-time employment with the federal government as they are recent hires or were just reassigned to a new role within the government.

So far, the IRS has already terminated roughly 7,000 probationary employees. 

In addition to more terminations, the Trump administration is reportedly planning to reassign some IRS agents to assist the Department of Homeland Security with immigration enforcement, the Associated Press reported. President Donald Trump floated sending IRS agents to the border in January following his inauguration. 

‘On day one, I immediately halted the hiring of any new IRS agents,’ Trump said during a rally at Circa Resort & Casino Las Vegas in January. ‘They hired, or tried to hire, 88,000 new workers to go after you. And we’re in the process of developing a plan to either terminate all of them or maybe we’ll move them to the border. And I think we’re going to move them to the border.’

‘Where they’re allowed to carry guns, you know, they’re so strong on guns, but these people are allowed to carry guns, so we’ll probably move them to the border,’ he continued. 

Certain special IRS agents are permitted to carry firearms as part of their duties, according to IRS Code, 26 U.S. Code § 7608. 

The Department of Homeland Security sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in February requesting that the IRS provide agents to be used for immigration enforcement efforts by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, who signed the letter, said Trump directed her agency to ‘take all appropriate action to supplement available personnel to secure the southern border and enforce the immigration laws of the United States,’ even through use of the agency’s authority to deputize federal employees to perform immigration functions.

The Treasury Department’s efforts to streamline the IRS come amid tax season, with the federal government expecting Americans’ individual income tax returns to be submitted by April 15. 

Fox News Digital’s Greg Wehner contributed to this report. 

Competing resolutions to censure Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, are causing some division within the House GOP on Wednesday.

The Texas Democrat was thrown out of President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night after repeatedly attempting to interrupt the speech, minutes after it began.

A resolution to punish Green over the incident is likely to pass, even with Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House. But differing ideas over how to get there have led to some frustrations between separate House GOP factions.

Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-WA, a moderate Republican, announced Wednesday he intends to force a vote on his own bill via a privileged resolution, meaning House leaders are forced to take it up within two days of the House being in session.

It accused Green of having ‘repeatedly violated the rules of decorum in the House of Representatives during President Donald J. Trump’s joint address to Congress,’ according to text provided to Fox News Digital.

Notably, Newhouse is one of two House Republicans left in Congress who voted to impeach Trump over the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot – a fact that backers of a competing censure resolution seized on.

Fox News Digital was told he had begun work on his resolution against Green on Tuesday night.

The next morning, the House Freedom Caucus announced it would be filing legislation to censure the Texas Democrat, led by Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz. 

Meanwhile, Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, began collecting signatures for a censure resolution against Green around 9 a.m. ET on Wednesday.

Nehls’ bill currently has nearly 30 Republican co-sponsors, including members of the House Freedom Caucus, a source told Fox News Digital.

But two other sources familiar with discussions told Fox News Digital that Newhouse’s resolution is most likely to be taken up by House GOP leadership.

A House GOP senior aide said in response, ‘It’s just tone deaf to even think that leadership would run with a censure from one of the two remaining GOP members who voted to impeach President Trump.’

‘It would be an obvious play to help shield him from another close primary challenge,’ the aide said.

But a second senior House GOP aide countered that, telling Fox News Digital that House GOP leadership had been aware of Newhouse’s plans on Tuesday night.

Newhouse reached out to Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., immediately after Trump’s address and both agreed on the need to censure Green, the second aide said.

The senior aide said there was ‘no better individual’ to lead the resolution given the level of respect afforded to Newhouse by fellow House Republicans. 

They also pointed out that Newhouse has already fended off tough primary challenges from his right, noting Trump likes winners, and that Newhouse praised Trump after the address on Tuesday night.

Nehls, meanwhile, is still undeterred. His office told Fox News Digital that he intends to move full steam and introduced his resolution on Wednesday afternoon.

And Green, for his part, told the Huffington Post he was ‘guilty’ after being read the text of Newhouse’s resolution.

House GOP leaders have already signaled they would look at punishing Green for his outburst.

Green remained defiant when he stopped to speak with the White House press pool on the first floor of the U.S. Capitol after being thrown out of the second floor House chamber, where Trump was speaking on Tuesday night.

‘I’m willing to suffer whatever punishment is available to me. I didn’t say to anyone, don’t punish me. I’ve said I’ll accept the punishment,’ Green said, according to the White House press pool report.

‘But it’s worth it to let people know that there are some of us who are going to stand up against this president’s desire to cut Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security.’

When reached for comment, Johnson’s office pointed Fox News Digital to the speaker’s earlier comments on Newhouse’s resolution.

‘I believe it is the first one out of the gate,’ he said. ‘I think [Green’s protest is] unprecedented. Certainly in the modern era. It wasn’t an excited utterance. It was a, you know, planned, prolonged protest.’

Top brass at the Department of State are questioning if the U.S. government’s role should include working ‘in the philanthropy business’ as the Trump administration uncovers a trove of mismanagement and overspending in recent years. 

‘No one will argue with the philanthropic nature of foreign assistance,’ Pete Marocco, the director of the Office of Foreign Assistance — which sits under the State Department’s federal umbrella — said to a group of faith-based organizations Friday. ‘So, this leads to another question I put before you today. Is it the proper role of government to be in the business of philanthropy?’ 

‘If U.S. foreign aid is only reaching 10% of its intended target, and the private sector is reaching the right people 87% of the time, this is a fundamental, age-old question we must return to and take seriously,’ he continued. ‘It’s imperative for foreign assistance to land in the right hands of the right people for the right reasons.’ 

Marocco’s comments were detailed in an internal State Department memo obtained by Fox News Digital that recapped a meeting between government officials and a group of roughly 25 faith-based organizations, which worked to engage the organizations in a ‘candid discussion about how their work supports and enhances U.S. foreign assistance goals under the America First framework.’ 

The ‘listening session’ meeting was invitation-only and moderated by Albert T. Gombis, acting under secretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights, and director of global criminal justice, Fox Digital learned. 

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Chair Elon Musk and the Trump administration have been on a warpath in recent weeks against the United States Agency for International Development’s history of reported overspending and mismanagement. USAID is an independent U.S. agency that was established under the Kennedy administration to administer economic aid to foreign nations. 

Musk has characterized the agency as ‘a viper’s nest of radical-left marxists who hate America.’

In January, President Donald Trump issued a near-total freeze on foreign aid through the agency and has since terminated thousands of employees and appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as the agency’s acting director, moves that have received staunch pushback from Democrats and federal employees. 

The freeze on payments was hit with lawsuits, with the Supreme Court Wednesday dealing a blow to the administration when it denied its request to block a lower court’s ruling for the administration to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign aid money. 

In a 5–4 ruling, the justices said a Feb. 26 deadline imposed by a lower court for the Trump administration to pay the funds already had expired, and directed the case back to the district court to clarify any additional details on payment.

The internal State Department memo continued that Marocco explained to the group of faith-based organizations that the Trump administration is ‘intentionally disrupting the system to identify and root out significant problems’ with its foreign aid programs. 

‘As you know, we’re in the midst of conducting a review of U.S. foreign aid programs,’ the memo said of the director’s opening remarks. ‘It’s challenging because we’re taking a very different approach from other reviews. Our review is starting from zero – a zero-based methodology. That means we are intentionally disrupting the system to identify and root out significant problems. Yes, this is causing unintended consequences for some programs, and those issues are being addressed separate from this forum.’ 

‘The truth is: the American people have lost faith in foreign assistance. They’ve lost faith in how we carry out this work. Nevertheless, today you’re here to think big and tell us how foreign assistance can be optimally effective,’ he added. 

Trump went to Capitol Hill Tuesday evening to deliver his first address to a joint session of Congress since returning to the White House in January. In the speech, Trump celebrated his administration’s immediate pause to foreign aid. 

‘Every day my administration is fighting to deliver the change America needs to bring a future that America deserves, and we’re doing it,’ Trump said Tuesday evening. ‘This is a time for big dreams and bold action. Upon taking office, I imposed an immediate freeze on all federal hiring, a freeze on all new federal regulations and a freeze on all foreign aid.’ 

The 47th president continued in his speech that Musk and DOGE have identified $22 billion in government ‘waste’ across various federal agencies, including USAID. 

‘Forty-five million dollars for diversity, equity and inclusion scholarships in Burma,’ Trump said as he rattled off various examples of federal waste. ‘Forty million to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows what that is. Eight million to promote LGBTQI+ in the African nation of Lesotho, which nobody has ever heard of. Sixty million dollars for indigenous peoples and Afro-Colombian empowerment in Central America. Sixty million. Eight million for making mice transgender.’

Democrats and government employees have railed against the Trump administration and DOGE’s work auditing the federal government, and some Democratic lawmakers even held up signs reading ‘Musk lies’ during Trump’s address Tuesday.

Fox News Digital’s Breanne Deppisch and Andrew Mark Miller contributed to this report. 

The Supreme Court on Wednesday denied the Trump administration’s request to block a lower court’s order for the administration to pay nearly $2 billion in foreign aid money, delivering a near-term reprieve to international aid groups and contractors seeking payment for previously completed projects.

In a 5-4 ruling, the justices said that the Feb. 26 deadline imposed by a lower court for the Trump administration to pay the funds had already expired and directed the case back to the district court to clarify any additional details on payment.

‘Given that the deadline in the challenged order has now passed, and in light of the ongoing preliminary injunction proceedings, the District Court should clarify what obligations the Government must fulfill to ensure compliance with the temporary restraining order, with due regard for the feasibility of any compliance timelines,’ the Court said.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

‘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) 2 billion taxpayer dollars? The answer to that question should be an emphatic ‘No,’ but a majority of this Court apparently thinks otherwise,’ Alito wrote. ‘I am stunned.’

Chief Justice John Roberts agreed last Wednesday to temporarily pause a lower court’s decision requiring the Trump administration to pay by 11:59 p.m. all outstanding invoices to foreign aid groups, an amount totaling roughly $1.9 billion – a timeline the Justice Department had argued was ‘impossible’ to comply with. Roberts did not give a reason for agreeing to pause the order issued by U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, a Biden appointee, though the chief justice had widely been expected to refer the matter to the full court for review.

Still, the decision to send the case back to the lower court to hash out what, exactly, must be paid out by the Trump administration – and when – could allow Trump officials to further stall on repayment.

Foreign aid groups had argued last week that Roberts’ pause prevented them from filing a motion of civil contempt against the Trump administration, a legal maneuver that employees from the affected groups said in interviews this week could have expedited their process to claw back the unpaid debt.

At issue is how quickly the Trump administration needs to pay the nearly $2 billion owed to aid groups and contractors for completed projects funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), at a time when the administration has issued a blanket freeze on all foreign spending in the name of government ‘efficiency’ and eliminating waste.

In a new court filing Monday, Acting U.S. Solicitor General Sarah Harris said that while the plaintiffs’ claims were likely ‘legitimate,’ the time U.S. District Judge Amir Ali gave them to pay the outstanding invoices was ‘not logistically or technically feasible.’

Harris also argued Monday that the order could be a violation of executive branch authorities granted by the Constitution to an elected president.

Ordering the Trump administration to make payments on a timeline of the lower court’s choosing, and ‘without regard to whether the requests are legitimate, or even due yet,’ Harris said, ‘intrudes on the president’s foreign affairs powers’ and executive branch oversight when it comes to distributing foreign aid.

Plaintiffs, for their part, rejected that notion in full. They argued in their own Supreme Court filing that the lower court judge had ordered the Trump administration to begin making the owed foreign aid payments more than two weeks ago – a deadline they said the government simply failed to meet, or to even take steps to meet – indicating that the administration had no plans to make good on fulfilling that request.

The Trump administration ‘never took steps towards compliance’ with Judge Ali’s order requiring the administration to unfreeze the federal funds to pay the $1.9 billion in owed project payments, attorneys for plaintiffs argued in their own Supreme Court filing. 

They also rejected the administration’s assertion in court last week that it would need ‘multiple weeks’ to restart the payment system.

Rather, they said, the Trump administration had moved too quickly to dismantle the systems required to send payments to foreign aid groups in the first place— and to purge the many USAID staffers who could have facilitated a smoother, faster repayment process.

‘All of these invoices have already been approved by the front-line managers at USAID, and it’s really these payment bottlenecks that the government has itself created’ that have caused the problems with repayment, one individual with knowledge of the USAID payments and contractors affected told Fox News Digital in an interview.

The high court challenge comes as many of the foreign aid groups who sued the administration earlier this year have already been stripped of the bulk of their funding. This aligns with President Donald Trump’s stated plans to cut some 90% of USAID foreign aid contracts and to slash an additional $60 billion in foreign aid spending.

The White House has not yet released a list of which contracts and grants were scheduled for elimination or those to be continued. However, critics have argued that the abrupt withdrawal of U.S. investment and presence around the world risks economic harm, reputational damage and new security risks, both at home and abroad.

Scott Greytak, a director at the group U.S. Transparency International, said in a statement that cutting such a large amount of U.S. foreign aid carries significant economic and security risks. The elimination of U.S. funding for certain projects, especially in countries with higher risks of corruption, could ‘open the door for increased cross-border corruption, fraud, and other crimes,’ he said. 

This could create new obstacles for U.S. businesses seeking to open or expand into foreign markets, said Greytak, whose group has active chapters in more than 100 countries globally, and could serve ‘as an invitation for U.S. competitors, especially China, to fill the vacuum created by the absence of U.S. engagement.’

This is a breaking news story. Check back soon for updates.