D.C. Memo: Judge Pauses Trump Spending Freeze. What Happens to BEAD?
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Freeze: Team Trump was looking like Team Turmoil yesterday. The White House’s Office of Management and Budget put out a notice late Monday (and a follow-up guidance Tuesday) about an immediate across-the-board spending freeze tied to recently signed Trump Executive Orders. For many in the telecom space, the big question was: Did the freeze put the $42.45 BEAD program on ice? Some read OMB broadly, meaning BEAD money could still be clawed back. “Approximately 95.5% of the funding still requires some level of approvals by [NTIA], and those funds would appear to be held up by this executive order, and are unlikely to make additional progress should Trump’s order remain in place,” said Raymond James analyst Frank G. Louthan, IV Wednesday morning. Scurrying for an answer became a moot issue after a federal judge Tuesday afternoon paused OMB’s spending freeze until Feb. 3. at the request of a few non-profit litigants. In the hours leading up to Judge Loren AliKhan’s administrative stay, Democrats were making a huge fuss – which prompted an acerbic response from Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor. “Trump’s decision to halt virtually all federal grants and loans is lawless, destructive, dangerous, and cruel. It is illegal. It is unconstitutional,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on his X feed Tuesday. New York state Attorney General Letitia James – who has sought Trump’s criminal prosecution since at least 2018 – promised to take the White House to court and did so in U.S. District Court in Rhode Island. “My office will be taking imminent legal action against this administration's unconstitutional pause on federal funding. We won't sit idly by while this administration harms our families,” James said Tuesday on her government X feed. Commerce Secretary-designate Howard Lutnick is to appear today before the Senate Commerce Committee for his confirmation hearing, where he will likely face a panel of troubled Democrats, including Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), who blasted the funding freeze and urged the White House to back down. “This unprecedented and unconstitutional move is causing chaos and jeopardizing critical support for everything from pediatric cancer research to equipment for our first responders,” she said in a statement. Trump confidant Miller took to his X feed to unload on the media and, by implication, the Democrats. “Welcome to the first dumb media hoax of 2025. OMB ordered a review of funding to [Non-Governmental Organizations], foreign governments and large discretionary contracts. It explicitly excluded all aid and benefit programs. Leftwing media outright lied and some people fell for the hoax,” Miller said.