A federal judge appointed by President Donald Trump has delivered a major legal blow to his own administration, ruling that it unlawfully withheld millions of dollars in congressionally approved funds from the National Endowment for Democracy.
The lawsuit
The NED filed suit against the Trump administration, arguing that the funding freeze violated the Administrative Procedure Act. According to the plaintiffs, the suspension created a “devastating” cash flow disaster that forced the organization to lay off 75 percent of its staff and suspend critical global pro-democracy programs.
The ruling
In response, the NED asked for emergency relief through a temporary restraining order and later a preliminary injunction to stop the administration from withholding the rest of its 2025 fiscal year funding. U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee from 2017, granted the request. “The defendants have likely unlawfully frozen the Endowment’s funding,” Friedrich wrote in a 15-page decision.
Judge rebukes Trump admin
Friedrich’s ruling emphasized that Congress has authority to approve funding for the NED. At the same time, the organization’s board is responsible for compliance with the NED Act. The executive branch, she wrote, is charged with executing that funding — but instead, the Trump administration withheld it for “impermissible policy reasons.” She concluded, “The defendants have fallen woefully short of providing an ‘annual grant’ that ‘enable[s]’ the Endowment to fulfill its statutory purposes.”
Trump admin’s impact
Friedrich outlined how the funding freeze disrupted NED’s operations and undermined its mission. “It was unable to fund 226 approved grants, 124 grants recommended for approval by the Board, and 53 core institute projects,” she wrote. “These are activities that the Endowment, in consultation with Congress, has determined are ‘important and time-sensitive’ … to fulfilling the Endowment’s mission.” Friedrich concluded that the administration failed to provide the required annual grant to support NED’s obligations.
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