Reuters
A judge in Washington on Wednesday temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Justice from canceling $3.2 million in grants to the American Bar Association to train lawyers to represent victims of domestic and sexual violence.
The ABA sued the Justice Department in April, claiming the agency illegally terminated federal grants in retaliation for the lawyer organization’s public criticism of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper granted the ABA’s request for a preliminary injunction to stop the government from terminating the grants as the case moves forward.
“The First Amendment injury is concrete and ongoing,” Cooper wrote in his opinion, opens new tab. “The ABA regularly engages in protected expressive activity, and DOJ’s termination of its grants directly punishes that activity.”
The Justice Department and the ABA did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the decision.
An attorney for the ABA, Skye Perryman, president and chief executive of the nonprofit legal group Democracy Forward, said in a statement Cooper’s order found that the Justice Department was unconstitutionally targeting the bar association because of its “stance on the importance of the rule of law and our Constitution.”
