US lawmaker moves to impeach federal judge for blocking Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze News
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US lawmaker moves to impeach federal judge for blocking Trump administration’s foreign aid freeze

US Congressman Andy Ogles (R-TN) sought to impeach US District Judge Amir Ali on Thursday after the judge ordered the Trump administration to lift the 90-day pause on all foreign aid. This action follows Ogles’s ongoing bid to remove US federal judge John Bates after he ordered the Trump administration to restore federal health websites and databases that the administration had pulled offline.

Ogles submitted to the House of Representatives an impeachment resolution accusing Judge Amir Ali of “high crimes” and “misdemeanors,” concluding that the federal judge was not fit for office and called for his removal. The resolution further argued that Judge Amir Ali’s restraining order blocking the Trump administration’s 90-day pause was a “patent violation of Constitutional precedent” and thus undermined President Donald Trump’s constitutional authority to carry out foreign policy. Additionally, Ogles stated that Judge Amir Ali had compromised his “fiduciary obligation to review federal agencies and programs.” The document further claimed that the federal judge had failed to consider the “troubled history of foreign assistance through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).”

Ogles has also accused Judge Bates of similar offenses in a recent impeachment resolution submitted against him earlier this month. The congressman has called Judge Bates a “radical activist” judge, and has launched an impeachment campaign against a myriad of other judges who he claims have “disobey[ed] their oaths to score political points.” In a recent post on X, Ogles declared that his recent actions against federal judges, such as Amir Ali and Bates, are part of an “impeachathon” that will include a number of other judges.

Judge Amir Ali concluded that the 90-day pause would cause “irreparable harm” to the aid that filed the lawsuit, and ordered a temporary restraining order blocking the Trump administration from carrying out the 90-day pause. In his order, Judge Amir Ali underscored the need to prevent “irreparable harm” to the organizations that rely on Congressionally appropriated foreign aid funds, acknowledging that the pause would result in major staff cuts, reduction of core operations, and shuttering. Judge Amir Ali further noted that the organizations did not assert that the pause would affect future grants or aid; rather, they cited concerns that the pause would affect existing contracts with agencies, such as USAID, which would have devastating effects on current aid recipients.

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