The appeals courts drug this out till the last minute, possibly trying to avoid Trump being able to get this to the Supreme Court.
At issue is a district court order that demanded Trump pay contracts that were frozen and being reviewed by the Administration. The single judge in this situation decided to overrule executive authority as well as bypass the Contract Disputes Act which is a federal law that oversees disputes between federal contractors and the government. By federal law, if these individual contractors had issues with their payment, they are require to file a claim and go through normal legal procedures. They cannot just go to a federal district judge and ask that judge to rule. They are required by law to go to the Court of Federal Claims.
Of course the left is up in arms demanding that this is about something entirely different than a dispute between contractors and the government. They are falsely suggesting that there is some constitutional requirement that the federal government must pay all contracts because those contracts are funded by congress. Some have even compared it to when Trump was "impeached" the first time over payments to Ukraine which Democrats claimed (with little to no evidence) were being held up by the Administration. Even then, the idea that Presidents have no authority as to how they administer congressional funds is more than just a bit laughable.
This will likely go before the full court and I suspect when all is said and done, that the court will rightly and legally require these disputes to be heard through the Court of Federal Claims and that they must follow the Contract Disputes Act. In the meantime, the Administration should be given the time necessary to see if there even is going to be a dispute or if they are actually going to pay these.
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