Judge Temporarily Blocks Trump Funding Freeze

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28, 2025 – A federal judge in Washington froze the Trump administration’s freeze on federal funding until at least Feb. 3, the Associated Press reported.

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All Federal agencies that provide Federal financial assistance are required by February 7, 2025to complete the attached spreadsheet and submit it to OMB. The information requested must be provided for any program that has funding or activities planned through March 15. Agencies are encouraged to complete this task for all their programs as soon as possible. OMB will be following up with additional deadlines for subsequent periods.

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The White House had circulated a memo telling agencies to pause all obligation and disbursement activities from Tuesday afternoon until Feb. 10, an effort to give Trump appointees to review them for ideological alignment with the administration. Nonprofit groups sued to block the move, leading District Judge Loren AliKhan to grant an administrative stay, as did a set of Democratic attorneys general.

Before the stay, things were up in the air.

Industry experts read the memo as applying to the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment program, the Biden-era effort to end the digital divide. The White House then released updated guidance Tuesday afternoon that appeared to walk back some sweeping language in the memo, saying only programs implicated by certain executive orders would be paused.