{"id":102197,"date":"2025-01-29T17:51:22","date_gmt":"2025-01-30T01:51:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/29\/judge-nukes-funding-freeze-after-press-secretary-admitted-new-legal-defense-was-bogus\/"},"modified":"2025-01-29T17:51:22","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T01:51:22","slug":"judge-nukes-funding-freeze-after-press-secretary-admitted-new-legal-defense-was-bogus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/2025\/01\/29\/judge-nukes-funding-freeze-after-press-secretary-admitted-new-legal-defense-was-bogus\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge Nukes Funding Freeze After Press Secretary Admitted New Legal Defense Was Bogus"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The federal funding freeze never rested on anything approaching firm legal footing<\/a>, so when the administration swiftly issued a retraction<\/a> before Judge McConnell of the District of Rhode Island was set to hear the matter, that seemed to be the end of this farcical episode. But it was actually the beginning of an even dumber legal strategy that has now imploded like one of Elon\u2019s rockets.<\/p>\n

All because the new White House Press Secretary decided to head to social media to brag that the administration would never back down and appears to have accidentally admitted that the administration was trying to defraud the court all along.<\/p>\n

Oops.<\/p>\n

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This is NOT a rescission of the federal funding freeze. <\/p>\n

It is simply a rescission of the OMB memo.<\/p>\n

Why? To end any confusion created by the court’s injunction.<\/p>\n

The President’s EO’s on federal funding remain in full force and effect, and will be rigorously implemented.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Karoline Leavitt (@PressSec) January 29, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

That\u2019s the Press Secretary explaining that they really only retracted the memo but not the policy. What does that even mean? Nothing coherent, but the tea leaf reading is that the White House thought that it could bypass the court challenge if they just removed the paper trail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or Leavitt has no idea what she\u2019s doing and is free to make public statements on behalf of the administration on matters before the courts without oversight from any lawyers.<\/p>\n

Either way, it really makes you wonder if any attorneys over there have any clue what they\u2019re doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it didn\u2019t take long for the court to recognize this ploy as legally meritless, calling out Leavitt specifically in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Judge MCCONNELL will *grant* the restraining order, saying the withdrawal of the “hugely ambiguous” OMB order is only a distinction without a difference “based on comments by the president\u2019s press secretary.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 29, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

It\u2019s going to be a wild few years.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

The post Judge Nukes Funding Freeze After Press Secretary Admitted New Legal Defense Was Bogus<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The federal funding freeze never rested on anything approaching firm legal footing<\/a>, so when the administration swiftly issued a retraction<\/a> before Judge McConnell of the District of Rhode Island was set to hear the matter, that seemed to be the end of this farcical episode. But it was actually the beginning of an even dumber legal strategy that has now imploded like one of Elon\u2019s rockets.<\/p>\n

All because the new White House Press Secretary decided to head to social media to brag that the administration would never back down and appears to have accidentally admitted that the administration was trying to defraud the court all along.<\/p>\n

Oops.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Press Secretary explaining that they really only retracted the memo but not the policy. What does that even mean? Nothing coherent, but the tea leaf reading is that the White House thought that it could bypass the court challenge if they just removed the paper trail.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Or Leavitt has no idea what she\u2019s doing and is free to make public statements on behalf of the administration on matters before the courts without oversight from any lawyers.<\/p>\n

Either way, it really makes you wonder if any attorneys over there have any clue what they\u2019re doing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And it didn\u2019t take long for the court to recognize this ploy as legally meritless, calling out Leavitt specifically in the process.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to be a wild few years.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Headshot\"Joe Patrice<\/a>\u00a0is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer<\/a>. Feel free to\u00a0email<\/a> any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on\u00a0Twitter<\/a>\u00a0or Bluesky<\/a> if you\u2019re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images) The federal funding freeze never rested on anything approaching firm legal footing, so when the administration swiftly issued a retraction before Judge McConnell of the District of Rhode Island was set to hear the matter, that seemed to be the end of this farcical episode. But it was actually the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}