A federal judge said on Monday that the White House had defied his order to release billions of dollars in federal grants, marking the first time a judge has expressly declared that the Trump administration is disobeying a judicial mandate.
The ruling by Judge John J. McConnell Jr. in Rhode Island federal court ordered administration officials to comply with what the judge called “the plain text” of a ruling he issued on Jan. 29.
That order, he wrote, was “clear and unambiguous, and there are no impediments to the Defendants’ compliance.”