FILE PHOTO: A view of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, U.S. June 29, 2024. REUTERS/Kevin Mohatt/File Photo

By John Kruzel

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Supreme Court sided again on Friday with Donald Trump, allowing his administration to withhold about $4 billion in foreign aid authorized by Congress for the current fiscal year as the Republican president pursues his "America First" agenda.

The case raises questions involving the degree to which a president has the authority to rescind funds Congress has appropriated for programs that do not align with his policies. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse.

The justices for now granted the Justice Department's request to block Washington-based U.S. District Judge Amir Ali's order that had directed the administration to promptly take steps to spend the aid at issue in the dispute. Ali's decision came in a lawsuit by aid groups challenging the administration's action.

The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority. The court's three liberal justices dissented.

The court said in its unsigned order that the aid groups may lack the legal authority to bring their challenge. It also expressed concerns that ruling against Trump at this stage in the case threatened to impair his power to conduct foreign affairs.

The court's liberals, in a dissent written by Justice Elena Kagan, called the ruling an affront to the constitutional principle that power is separated between the three branches - executive, legislative and judicial - of the U.S. government. They noted that the Constitution "gives Congress the power to make spending decisions through the enactment of appropriations laws."

"If those laws require obligation of the money, and if Congress has not by rescission or other action relieved the Executive of that duty, then the Executive must comply," Kagan wrote in a dissent joined by fellow liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

The administration said in court papers that the money it targeted is "contrary to U.S. foreign policy," reflecting Trump's effort to scale back U.S. assistance abroad as part of an "America First" agenda. Trump also has moved to dismantle the U.S. Agency for International Development, the main U.S. foreign aid agency.

The U.S. government's 2025 fiscal year ends on September 30. The $4 billion in aid spending at issue in the case was intended by Congress for foreign aid, United Nations peacekeeping operations and democracy-promotion efforts overseas.

Congress budgeted billions of dollars in foreign aid last year, about $11 billion of which was set to expire at the end of the fiscal year.

The administration sought to block the $4 billion at issue in the case through a "pocket rescission," an unusual move aimed at avoiding spending funds appropriated by Congress.

The administration has repeatedly asked the Supreme Court this year to intervene to allow implementation of Trump policies impeded by lower courts. The court has sided with the administration in almost every case it has been called upon to review since Trump returned to the presidency in January.

In an earlier iteration of the foreign aid case, the court in a 5-4 vote in March declined to let the administration withhold payment of some $2 billion to aid organizations for work they already performed for the government.

'GRAVE HUMANITARIAN IMPACT'

Nick Sansone, an attorney for some of the aid groups that challenged Trump's action, said the court's order on Friday "further erodes separation of powers principles that are fundamental to our constitutional order."

"It will also have a grave humanitarian impact on vulnerable communities throughout the world," Sansone said.

Ali ruled on September 3 that the administration cannot simply choose to withhold the money, and that it must comply with appropriations laws passed by Congress unless lawmakers change them.

Justice Department lawyers in court papers told the Supreme Court that Ali's injunction raised "a grave and urgent threat to the separation of powers."

"It would be self-defeating and senseless for the executive branch to obligate the very funds that it is asking Congress to rescind," lawyers for the Justice Department wrote.

Trump budget director Russell Vought has argued that the president can withhold funds for 45 days after requesting a rescission, which would run out the clock until the end of the fiscal year. The White House said the tactic was last used in 1977.

Some legal experts have said Trump's attempted clawback of billions of dollars in congressionally appropriated funds in this manner had no historical parallel.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in a 2-1 ruling on September 5 declined to halt Ali's order, prompting the administration's request to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court on September 9 paused Ali's order while it considered how to proceed.

(Reporting by John Kruzel; Editing by Will Dunham)