Press Release: 6/18/2025

AG Campbell Joins Coalition of 23 Attorneys General Opposing President Trump's Unlawful Freeze of Foreign Aid Funds

 

Brief Argues Against Extreme Executive Overreach and Details How Freeze of USAID Funds Has Harmed Amici States and Their Residents 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

6/17/2025

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Kennedy Sims, Deputy Press Secretary

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Call Kennedy Sims, Deputy Press Secretary at (617) 727-2543

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BOSTON — Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined a coalition of 23 attorneys general last Friday in filing an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit in support of the Global Health Council’s lawsuit against the Trump Administration. The suit challenges the administration’s unlawful abuse of executive power to withhold billions of dollars in federal funding appropriated by Congress for foreign assistance programs all managed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the State Department.

In the brief, filed in Global Health Council, et. al v. Trump, the coalition of attorneys general pushes back against the Trump Administration’s misguided assertion that it can unilaterally withhold funds that Congress has appropriated based on its own policy judgments. The coalition further emphasizes how the Administration’s abrupt termination of foreign aid funding has substantially harmed the amici states, cutting off billions of dollars in funding for research grants and contracts – facilitated by USAID – that benefitted American farmers, universities, nonprofits, and small businesses. The brief urges the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to reject the Administration’s extraordinary view of executive power—a view that would diminish Congress’s constitutional authority and risk substantial harm to the states and others. 

“No President has the authority to bypass Congress’s power of the purse and, in this case, unilaterally block funding that supports public health, research, and humanitarian aid,” said AG Campbell. “This unlawful freeze has very real consequences for communities, universities, and workers here at home in addition to countless abroad. I will continue to use the full authority of my office to push back against the Trump Administration’s repeated abuses of executive power.” 

In January 2025, President Trump signed an executive order directing members of the Executive Branch to freeze federal funding for foreign aid programs at USAID and the State Department. This included halting funding for critical public health and humanitarian assistance projects that were already in progress abroad, as well as funding for health and agricultural research that was ongoing within the United States.  A group of foreign aid nonprofits challenged the withholding of these funds; a federal district court granted their request for a preliminary injunction and ordered the Executive Branch agencies and officials to “make available for obligation the full amount of funds that Congress appropriated for foreign assistance programs.” 

The coalition of attorneys general urge the appellate court to uphold the preliminary injunction, and in doing so, they: 

• Urge the court to reject the Administration’s contention that the Executive Branch can unilaterally choose to withhold funds Congress has appropriated. The Constitution gives Congress, not the President, the authority to appropriate funds. Where Congress has appropriated funds for specific purposes, the President does not have unilateral authority to refuse to spend funds on those very purposes. 
  
   


• Argue that the unlawful freezing of foreign aid funds is actively harming Massachusetts and the other states. By halting the flow of billions of dollars of funding for foreign assistance programs, the President and other Executive Branch officials have inflicted substantial harm on universities, farmers, nonprofits, and small businesses. Hundreds of American workers have been terminated, substantial amounts of American crops intended for international distribution have been unallocated, and hundreds of millions of dollars of cutting-edge research projects at some of the nation’s top public universities have been halted as a result of the withholding of the funds.  

AG Campbell is joined in the filing the brief by the attorneys general from the District of Columbia, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin.

A copy of the brief is available here.