Dorf on Law

Very soon--perhaps just hours or even minutes after this blog post goes live--the Supreme Court will rule on the Trump administration's application for a stay of Federal District Judge Amir Ali's order that it comply with a previously entered temporary restraining order against the freezing of $2 billion in USAID payments. As readers are probably aware, on Wednesday of last week, Chief Justice Roberts issued an administrative stay to give the full Court time to consider the application. He also gave the plaintiffs two days to file a response. They did so on Friday . To my mind, the plaintiffs' response is persuasive, but the case in its current procedural posture implicates some fairly technical questions about civil procedure--including what's appealable and how--as well as the interaction between administrative law and statutes concerning how contractors can sue the government. It is therefore possible that the outcome of this particular case--whatever that outcome i...