The Supreme Court on Friday at least temporarily allowed the Trump administration to withhold about $4 billion in payments for the SNAP food benefits program that a federal judge had ordered.

The court via an order issued by Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson provisionally blocked an order issued by Rhode Island-based U.S. District Judge John McConnell that required the payments to be made by Friday night.

The administration has said that because of the government shutdown, there is only enough money to pay partial benefits this month. It had previously agreed to pay about $5 billion from a SNAP contingency fund but objected to paying another $4 billion from a separate program, arguing McConnell had no authority to force it to.

Earlier on Friday, the Agriculture Department ha

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