Credit: District of Rhode Island
A federal judge in Rhode Island has slapped the Trump administration with a temporary restraining order, forcing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to reinstate $11 billion in long-expired COVID-19 relief funds—despite the pandemic having officially ended nearly two years ago.
This outrageous ruling, handed down on Thursday, comes courtesy of a lawsuit spearheaded by a gang of 23 mostly far-left states—plus the District of Columbia—who are clutching their pearls over the Trump team’s bold move to finally cut off the COVID cash spigot.
The plaintiffs are:
Rhode Island
Arizona
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Hawaii
Illinois
Kentucky
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Nevada
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Washington
Wisconsin
Washington, D.C.
The lawsuit, filed in Rhode Island federal court, rails against the March 24th decision by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to terminate grants from pandemic-era spending packages like the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan. The grants, which were initially approved to respond to the emergency of COVID-19, had long since outlived their original intent.
According to the letter sent by HHS, “The end of the pandemic provides cause to terminate COVID-related grant funds. These grant funds were issued for a limited purpose: to ameliorate the effects of the pandemic. Now that the pandemic is over, the grant funds are no longer necessary.”
In an email to Science, HHS wrote, “The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago. HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
But Democrat attorneys general and governors claim that cutting this spending now amounts to administrative overreach. They argue the pandemic may be “officially over,” but the money should keep flowing.
The leftist legal machine wasn’t about to let go of a multi-billion-dollar slush fund without a fight.
“This massive and egregiously irresponsible cut of public health funding should put everyone on high alert to the depths this Administration is willing to go,” Rhode Island’s Attorney General Peter Neronha wrote in the initial complaint.
According to Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown, the judge’s temporary restraining order will ensure that programs aimed at “preventing the spread of infectious diseases” and “supporting mental health” continue to receive funding—never mind that the national emergency has long since ended and the funds were tied to precisely that emergency.
“I cannot overstate how reckless and illegal these cuts are,” said Arizona Attorney General Mayes. “By slashing these grants, the Trump administration has launched an all-out attack on Arizona’s public health system—harming the entire state, but hitting rural communities the hardest. These cuts target the very places that rely most on this critical funding. Eliminating it would devastate our already precarious system and cost jobs across Arizona, from doctors to tribal health workers. I will fight this every step of the way.”
According to CBS News, the outrageous ruling came from Judge Mary S. McElroy, a federal judge appointed by President Trump during his first term in office.
The Providence Journal reported:
A federal judge said Thursday she will grant a temporary restraining order requested by attorneys general and governors in 24 states that will keep in place for now the nearly $11 billion in public health grants – including $31 million for Rhode Island – that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services canceled last week.
U.S. District Judge Mary S. McElroy said there was “quite voluminous” evidence that the cuts would do immediate and immeasurable harm to Americans across the country.
Her decision came at the end of a hearing in which a lawyer from the Rhode Island attorney general’s office presented a long list of current and impending impacts in states across the country that she said would happen if the grants were terminated, as HHS ordered last week.
[…]
McElroy said she expected the states would take the next step and file a motion for a preliminary injunction as well, and she would give the government time to respond. But given the immediate and irreparable harm of the grant cuts now, “I don’t see how I can deny the temporary restraining order.”
The post Federal Judge in Rhode Island Hijacks HHS Authority, Orders Trump Administration to Reinstate $11 Billion in COVID “Emergency” Funds Despite the Pandemic Ending Nearly Two Years Ago appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.