Chief justice halts lower court decision ordering Trump administration to pay State Department, USAID contractors

Chief Justice John Roberts late Wednesday granted the Trump administration's request to put on hold a lower court order that required it to pay an estimated $2 billion in foreign assistance funds for State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development projects by midnight Wednesday.

Roberts, who oversees requests for emergency relief arising from cases in the District of Columbia, acted alone in halting the decision from a federal district judge issued Tuesday. The judge, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali, gave the State Department and USAID until 11:59 p.m. Wednesday to pay its bills to contractors for work that had been completed before Feb. 13. The Trump administration had earlier in the night asked the Supreme Court to intervene in the dispute involving frozen foreign assistance funds.