An appeals court has affirmed that the administration of President Donald Trump does have the authority to claw back billions of dollars handed out by the Joe Biden administration as his single term in office closed down.
One government official described how the cash handouts to favored Democrat interests amounted to dumping “gold bars” off the Titanic.
The Washington Examiner reported the decision in the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a decision by Trump-opposing Judge Tanya Chutkan that the clawbacks couldn’t happen.
The new ruling now allows Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency to slash billions of dollars in grants that green groups were expecting under the Biden handout program.
Judges Gregory Katsas and Neomi Rao said the clawbacks could go forward; Cornelia Pillard dissented.
The ruling said Chutkan “abused” her discretion by issuing an injunction preventing EPA from rescinding the billions in handouts.
Further, they said the plaintiffs were not likely to succeed in their case because it belonged in the Court of Federal Claims, rather than the district court, the report said.
“Moreover, the equities strongly favor the government, which on behalf of the public must ensure the proper oversight and management of this multibillion-dollar fund,” the ruling said.
Chutkan had wanted the green groups to be given access to the cash.
A report at RedState said the disputed amount involved in this case totaled about $16 billion.
“The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has again handed the administration a win with a 2-1 decision handed down late Tuesday morning in a case involving EPA grants. Remember the stories about the gold bars being (figuratively) pitched overboard in the waning days of the Biden administration? Yep, those are the funds at the heart of this litigation.
“But in issuing the decision, Judge Rao hearkened back to the hubbub over the ‘gold bars’ story: The sheer scale of the grant program and the method of allocating billions of dollars drew public attention and criticism. The record includes a widely publicized video in which an EPA employee was recorded describing how ‘until recently’ his role was to make sure proper ‘processes are in place to … prevent fraud and to prevent abuse,’ but after the election of President Donald Trump, EPA was ‘just trying to get the money out as fast as possible before they come in and … stop it all,’” the report said.
The employee compared the situation to “throwing gold bars off the Titanic.”
“As Rao rightly notes, there is a proper jurisdiction for claims of the nature brought by these grantees, and that is the Court of Federal Claims — and even that court may not issue injunctive relief,” the report said.
