After losing at the ballot box, the left has returned to its familiar strategy of slowing President Donald Trump’s agenda through the courts. Lucky for them, former President Joe Biden appointed reliable lefty U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan in 2023 to the Washington, D.C. court.
AliKhan has sided against the American people throughout her legal career, often in cases involving faith. Did you want to go to church during Covid? AliKhan actively worked against the freedom of religious assembly.
Now, AliKhan is overseeing a court challenge to the temporary spending freeze requested by the Trump Administration’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
The OMB requested spending pause in a Jan 27 memo, saying OMB must do an analysis of all federal financial assistance programs to identify spending that may be affected by Trump’s executive orders. It was looking for spending related to foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the Green New Deal.
The National Council of Nonprofits went to court the next day, Jan. 28, challenging the 90-day pause, saying the pause “could deprive people and communities of their life-saving services,” court papers show.
“This order is a potential five-alarm fire for nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve,” said a statement from National Council of Nonprofits President and CEO Diane Yentel. “The impact of even a short pause in funding could be devastating and cost lives. This order could decimate thousands of organizations and leave neighbors without the services they need.”
AliKhan immediately granted a temporary restraining order Jan. 28, blocking the spending pause. The next day, Jan. 29, OMB rescinded the memo and later told the court the case was moot because the pause was no longer in effect. Money is flowing to nonprofits.
The pause was to look at spending before sending out payments. The spending cuts are still happening. This case only addresses the pause. Ending the pause should have been the end of the case, but it continued.
On Tuesday, AliKhan issued a preliminary injunction blocking the pause.
“Plaintiffs painted a stark picture of nationwide panic in the wake of the funding freeze. Nonprofits and organizations across the country were left adrift as they scrambled to make sense of the memorandum and its effects,” AliKhan wrote in her dramatic decision. “Entire funding portals were taken offline with no rhyme or reason, generating significant confusion and fear. Many organizations had to resort to desperate measures just to stay operational. The pause placed critical programs for children, the elderly, and everyone in between in serious jeopardy. Because the public’s interest in not having trillions of dollars arbitrarily frozen cannot be overstated, Plaintiffs have more than met their burden here.”
The decision from AliKhan was predictable as he often sides outside of common sense and in alignment with the political views she favors.
During AliKhan’s 2023 confirmation hearing, numerous religious groups signed a joint letter to Congress in opposition to her nomination, detailing her activism. She was approved in a tie-breaking vote by former Vice President Kamala Harris.
In the D.C. district, AliKhan argued that houses of worship meeting outdoors, masked and socially distanced, posed a greater threat during the Covid pandemic than the city-wide Black Lives Matter protests, according to the letter. As proof, she presented to the court a witness with a Ph.D. in political science, not a medical expert, who claimed the risk of spreading Covid is higher for events where people are standing (church service) than where they are moving (a protest). The court didn’t buy it, and D.C. taxpayers paid $220,000 to reimburse the church for legal fees.
In a Supreme Court religious freedom case, Hosanna-Tabor v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, AliKhan asked the court to strike down the ministerial exemption, which ensures houses of worship are free to run their internal affairs and select their own ministers without government interference. Alikhan argued, “Nothing … in any right under the Religion Clauses — grants religious organizations such a sweeping exception.” The Supreme Court unanimously called her position “untenable” and “hard to square with the text of the First Amendment, which gives special solicitude to the rights of religious organizations.”
AliKhan submitted an amicus brief supporting a nationwide injunction asking the Department of Health and Human Serviced to block regulations allowing religious and moral exemptions to the contraceptive mandate. The 9th Circuit found it would be an “abuse of discretion” and “overbroad” to apply the court order nationwide because D.C. and its fellow amici had not shown a “nationwide impact or sufficient similarity” to states like California that filed the lawsuit.
AliKhan defended the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue’s denial of a property tax exemption for a Sikh temple, the letter stated. The D.C. Court of Appeals rejected her arguments as violating the First Amendment.
She argued that the trust did not qualify for the property tax exemption for houses of worship, saying the trust must be the same legal entity under the U.S. tax code as the congregation.
“The D.C. Court of Appeals rejected AliKhan’s arguments as violating the First Amendment’s prohibition on the federal government’s interference in the internal governance of religious organizations — such as whether they were registered as a house of worship or a 501(c)(3) charity,” The Court also rejected her argument because it would result in a house of worship losing its tax exemption if it engages in outside charitable work.
Beth Brelje is an elections correspondent for The Federalist. She is an award-winning investigative journalist with decades of media experience.
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