There are some major developments and big legal wins this week for the Trump administration when it comes to massive budget cuts under DOGE.
President Donald Trump has spent his second term asserting expansive executive authority to freeze federal dollars allocated by Congress, an action called “impoundment” that legal scholars and aid groups had considered strictly limited under federal law.
But in a 2-to-1 vote Wednesday, a federal appeals court panel cleared the way for the Trump administration to continue refusing to spend billions of dollars in foreign aid, including the gutting of USAID.
Essentially the court’s two conservative judges ruled that the aid groups that are losing money actually don’t have the right to sue.
Instead, any such challenge must come from Congress through its independent watchdog, the Government Accountability Office, and since congress is currently controlled by Republicans that challenge seems very unlikely.
This is the second big legal win this week for President Trump.
Earlier this week, a different federal appeals panel ruled 2-to-1 in favor of granting the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) wide-ranging access to the sensitive data of millions of Americans.
That decision overruled a lower court ruling that had blocked DOGE from collecting information from the treasury and education departments as well as the office of personnel management.
Several labor unions argued that the action violates federal privacy laws.
The Justice Department has repeatedly said that DOGE has been drilling into federal data to weed out evidence of waste and fraud.
Critics claim DOGE is really focused on slashing federal agencies and reducing government services regardless of whether there’s waste, fraud or abuse.
While that debate is still playing out politically, from a legal standpoint, this week saw two big decisions on efforts to limit presidential power and two big wins for President Trump.