A senior Trump administration official with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) instructed subordinates Tuesday to freeze its grant funding on Monday—contradicting a federal injunction upheld just hours earlier by an appeals court panel.
Stacey Street, the director of the agency’s Office of Grant Administration, sent an “URGENT” email telling staff to pull funding for grant programs allocated as far back as 2021, according to NBC News.
The areas affected included emergency preparedness, homeland security, firefighting, protecting churches from terrorism, and tribal security, the network reported.
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“For all awards FY23 and prior: put financial holds on all of your awards — all open awards, all years (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024),” she wrote, according to one recipient who spoke on condition of anonymity to NBC News.
“There’s a lot of people who are running scared and trying to appease [the new administration],” the recipient said.
Just hours earlier, a federal appeals court officially put the kibosh on President Donald Trump’s appeal to the injunction, which effectively—if only temporarily—nixed his broad freeze on billions in federal grant funding.
A panel of 1st Circuit judges rejected Trump’s request to lift a motion by U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell that unpaused his administration’s attempt to unilaterally pause federal loans, grants and financial assistance, putting key government programs such as Medicaid payments on ice, in a Jan. 27 internal memo.
ABC News reported that the appeals court ruled in a two-page order that they are “confident” the lower court will make the right call.
The court added in the order, “We are confident the District Court will act with dispatch to provide any clarification needed with respect to, among other things, the defendants’ contention that the February 10 Order ‘bars both the President and much of the Federal Government from exercising their own lawful authorities to withhold funding without the prior approval of the district court.’”
McConnell first issued his injunction on Jan. 31 and again in a motion on Monday ordered the government to “immediately restore frozen funding” amid reports that the injunction was being violated.
McConnell told NBC News that some states have “presented evidence” that his motion has not been followed by some officials despite it being “clear and unambiguous.”
“The States have presented evidence in this motion that the Defendants in some cases have continued to improperly freeze federal funds and refused to resume disbursement of appropriated federal funds,” McConnell wrote Monday.
In comments made Tuesday about challenges to his executive orders, Trump said he would always “abide by the courts.” He added, “Then I’ll have to appeal it.”
Despite his statements, which seemed to respect the United States’ separation of powers, four FEMA officials were reportedly fired Tuesday for fulfilling federal grant funding, according to Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
“Effective immediately, FEMA is terminating the employment of four individuals for circumventing leadership to unilaterally make egregious payments for luxury NYC hotels for migrants,” McLaughlin told NBC News. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, DHS will not sit idly and allow deep state activists to undermine the will and safety of the American people.”
Trump further claimed that court orders only “slowed down momentum.” And “it gives crooked people more time to cover up the books,” he said.
Yet the court orders haven’t stopped many Trump officials from pushing ahead with his agenda.
Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has been given broad authority to shrink the government by taking an axe to funding, agencies and even entire departments, such as a widely reported plan to dissolve the Department of Education.
FEMA has also reportedly been in Musk’s sights after Trump has expressed on multiple occasions that he believes money for state-level disasters should come from the states and not the federal government.
