Federal judge rips Trump DOJ's 'shameful' slashing of violence prevention grants, 'laments' there's nothing he can do

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Law & Crime

Jul 8th, 2025, 11:39 am


A federal judge in Washington, D.C., was crystal clear on how he felt about the DOJ and its Office of Justice Programs' (OJP) "shameful" and "unfair" sweeping move to slash violence prevention and anti-human trafficking grants. But unfortunately for the groups who sued the Trump administration, the judge simultaneously acknowledged amid his lamentations that he was powerless to do anything about it.

A collection of safety-focused nonprofit grantees filed a class action suit against the DOJ and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi in May, claiming that the OJP's April decision to "abruptly and summarily terminat[e] more than 370 multi-year cooperative agreements" and "$820 million in essential funding" ran afoul of the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA).

The Vera Institute of Justice, the Children and Youth Justice Center, Chinese for Affirmative Action (aka Stop AAPI Hate), FORCE Detroit, and Health Resources in Action argued that the "no notice" terminations with "no reasoned explanation" amounted to a "quintessential unlawful agency action" in violation of the APA, one they contended that U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta had the power to stop.

On Monday, Mehta disagreed in rather straightforward fashion that he had any role to play, even as he roundly criticized the administration's stated rationale for the cuts. The judge said that because the plaintiffs' APA claims against the government "are essentially contractual in nature" those claims "belong" in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, not the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Read more: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/it-is-likely-to-harm-federal-judge-rips-trump-dojs-shameful-slashing-of-violence-prevention-grants-laments-theres-nothing-he-can-do/

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Full headline: 'It is likely to harm': Federal judge rips Trump DOJ's 'shameful' slashing of violence prevention grants, 'laments' there's nothing he can do

Link to RULING (PDF) - https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.280817/gov.uscourts.dcd.280817.47.0.pdf

Of note (from the excepts) -

APA claims against the government "are essentially contractual in nature" those claims "belong" in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, not the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.