Organizations sue Justice Department to reverse hundreds of grant cancellations
Five organizations that had grants terminated by the Justice Department in April are suing the department and Attorney General Pam Bondi calling the cancellations unconstitutional and asking that the money be reinstated.
The lawsuit, filed late Wednesday by the Vera Institute of Justice, the Center for Children & Youth Justice, Chinese for Affirmative Action, FORCE Detroit and Health Resources in Action, asks a federal judge in Washington District Court to 'declare unlawful, vacate and set aside' the cancellations that were sent to more than 360 awardees ending grants worth nearly $820 million midstream.
The lawsuit filed by the Democracy Forward Foundation and the Perry Law firm asks for class action status and also names the Office of Justice Programs and Maureen Henneberg, the acting head of that office, as defendants.
The lawsuit argues that the grant terminations did not allow due process to the organizations, lacked sufficient clarity, and that Henneberg's office lacked 'constitutional, statutory, and regulatory authority' to terminate the grants. The lawyers also argue that the move violated the constitutional separation of powers clause that gives Congress appropriation powers.
The lawsuit notes that all the grant recipients that had money rescinded received the same form letter announcing the cancellation, with identical words saying the grant programs no longer met the agency's priorities.
Lawyers argue in the lawsuit that the new agency priorities noted in the form letter are not articulated in policy or law, and that federal regulations do not allow for cancellations when the agency's priorities change 'post-award.' They said the rule only allows for cancellations of grants that no longer meet the agency's goals as stated when the grants were awarded.
The lawsuit says the Office of Justice Programs 'is permitted to terminate an award based on agency priorities only if that basis for termination was specifically permitted by the terms and conditions of the award.' That did not happen, it argues.
Representatives from Vera said the nonprofit received notice on April 4 that five awards worth more than $7 million were being cancelled. The other named plaintiffs, along with hundreds of other groups, received identical notices on April 22 that they should cease any activities under the grants and that they would lose access to the federal funding system.
The grants cover a wide swath of programing across the Justice Department. Among other goals, they are for community violence intervention work, combatting hate crimes, providing assistance to crime survivors and survivors of domestic or sexual abuse, improving juvenile justice, and training for law enforcement agencies.
The lawsuit says none of the organizations had previously had grants terminated and many had received grants for various programs under both Democratic and Republican presidential administrations.
Many of the organizations that lost the federal money said the unexpected cancellations mid-grant had meant layoffs, program closures and loss of community partnerships. In addition to staying the cancellations and reinstating the awards, lawyers also ask a judge to require state reports every 30 days to ensure compliance.
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Andrew Yang has reached out to Elon Musk with a sales pitch: Let's build a third party together. The former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate has been pushing his independent Forward Party for several years — and he sprang into action after Musk's feud with President Donald Trump erupted and Musk polled X users on whether they wanted a new political party. In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Yang said he hasn't heard back from Musk yet, but he's optimistic. Yang also acknowledged he doesn't agree with Musk about everything, but said that his Forward Party should appeal to those across the political spectrum. And don't forget that Musk had endorsed Yang's previous presidential bid. Enormous hurdles exist to breaking through in America's two-party system. But Yang argued the American public is ready for a change, particularly if the effort gets help from the richest man in the world — who also happens to control a massive social media platform. 'Elon has built world-class companies from nothing more than an idea multiple times, and in this instance, you have the vast majority of Americans who are hungry for a new approach,' Yang said. 'I'm happy to spell it out for Elon or anyone else who wants to head down this road: A third party can succeed very quickly.' This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. I saw that you retweeted a post Elon Musk made about needing 'to create a new political party in America that actually represents the 80 percent in the middle.' Have you reached out directly to Musk about creating a new party or working with your Forward Party? I have reached out, and some mutual friends are also looking to connect us. Have you heard back yet? Not yet, but I assume he's been very busy. We have been of the opinion that America needed a new political party for a number of years, and so waiting another 24 hours is nothing. Is he someone you'd want to work with to build a third party? I want to work with people that recognize that America's political system has gone from dysfunctional to polarizing to even worse. And at this point, the fastest growing political movement in the United States is independents. They feel like neither party represents them, and the two-party system is not delivering what they want to see. And the two of you have seen dysfunction on both sides — you on the Democratic side and Musk on the Republican. If you think about what animates Elon, he wants to get us to Mars, and I feel that he's been driven these last several years by an opposition to 'wokeness,' by what he sees as excessive bureaucracy, and by waste and overspending in the federal government. And in our two-party system, he thought that Trump was the better choice. If you look at Musk's politics over the last number of years, he waited in line to meet Barack Obama, he endorsed me in a Democratic cycle, and even earlier in this cycle — 2024 — he was looking for an alternative to Trump. There are a number of things that I think Elon shares in common with a lot of other folks I talk to who want to see some kind of middle ground or balance. The problem is: In our two-party system, you get whipsawed either one direction or the other. I will say that the deficit in spending, neither party has done a good job of addressing it, because as soon as they're in power, they don't want to make the tough choices. You're coming politically from the center-left; Elon Musk is coming from arguably the hard right. How would you overcome your political differences? If you look at the Forward Party makeup, my co-chairs include Christine Todd Whitman, who was governor of New Jersey and EPA secretary under George W. Bush, and Kerry Healey, who was lieutenant governor of Massachusetts under Mitt Romney. And I would say that the three of us don't line up on every issue, but we're in lockstep on the fact that America's current political system is not delivering real solutions or results, and both parties are captive to perverse incentives. Anyone who wants to modernize and restore the American political system, so that it actually listens to people and communities, we can agree on that. And that is the mission. The fact is that the two parties do a great job of falsely segmenting us along some ideological spectrum, saying, 'Oh, you want this? You're over there. You want this? You're over there,' when in reality the current system is not going to deliver what either of those sides want. Unless what they want is strife and conflict and mistrust. But is that enough to maintain a third party or does there need to be a political or policy goal that propels the party forward? Are there any specific policies that you feel like you agree on with Musk? The three pillars that we're operating on are dignity, dynamism and democracy, which is something that most Americans can get behind. But in practical terms, if you can imagine three or four U.S. senators who are from a new party, they could work with either side to get things done and would become the most powerful legislators in the country, because their votes might be necessary to pass any legislation. And I dare say that you would have a much more interesting and balanced set of solutions as a result. What about his work to dismantle USAID and cause havoc in much of the federal government? Did you agree with that? One thing I found interesting was that a number of moderate Democrats signaled over the last 24 hours that they would be open to receiving Elon as an ally as a result of his feud with Donald Trump, despite him being essentially one of their primary boogeyman over the last number of weeks. I don't have to agree with everyone's past decisions in order to agree that the primary mission has to be getting our political system back in a place where it's actually responsive to both the views and the needs of the American people, and right now, we don't have that. Anyone who's kept up with me over the last number of years knows that I've been driven by the fact that AI is going to transform our economy in ways that push more and more Americans to the side. That is playing out before our eyes right now in real time, with [Anthropic CEO] Dario Amodei coming out saying that entry-level white collar work is going to be automated, and that we need to think bigger about solutions. I think that Dario is right. I've been making the same case since 2019, 2018. I'd ask anyone who is reading this right now, 'What is the current plan when it comes to the economic changes that are going to be brought by AI?' The answer is, 'Not much.' Because our current political class does not have to address that issue, or any of a panoply of other issues in order to keep power. They have done an expert job of gerrymandering the country into red zones and blue zones, such that all of us are looking up, wondering, 'What the heck is going on?' Speaking of AI, do you think Musk could be a good partner on that? If you look back at the [2020] cycle, he was openly saying that AI was going to have a massive impact, and he did endorse me while I was running as a Democrat on some of those solutions. Musk has become very polarizing to much of the country. Who are the people you think you'd attract if you built a third party with Musk? Again, people have come to the Forward Party from all different walks of life and different ideologies. Elon has a very, very significant following and megaphone, and you can see that with the number of people that have voted on his post about starting a third party. It's about 5.3 million votes, with 81 percent saying yes, it is time to create a new political party, and Forward has gotten thousands of new followers just in the last 24 hours, because we are the preeminent effort to modernize and rationalize America's broken political system. I'm thrilled that others are waking up. Do you think Elon Musk is actually serious about creating a new party? What do you think he wants out of all this? I haven't spoken to Elon recently, but I think there are several things that are animating him, and very, very high on his list is America's financial solvency. I think he's deeply frustrated by the fact that he wanted to reduce waste in government, and then the Republicans turn around and propose a bill that would increase the deficit by two and a half trillion dollars. If your goal is to have the government on a positive fiscal path, that's not the way to do it. I think Elon's frustration is shared by lots of other Americans who realize that when push comes to shove, politicians don't want to make the tough choices that would be necessary to put us on a sustainable path — certainly politicians from the current parties. I saw [JP Morgan CEO and Chair] Jamie Dimon speak the other day, and he seems to share similar concerns and had a number of very sensible proposals. But you realize that it would take a figure, in my view, who's not of the two major parties to make some of these solutions happen. Is that person Elon Musk? I think there are any number of people that if they were to be elected as an independent or a Forward Party member, they would then be able to propose the common-sense solutions that most Americans say we need. One figure that I'm very excited about that recently declared that he was running for governor of Michigan as an independent is [Detroit Mayor] Mike Duggan, who has turned around Detroit, and before that, turned around a hospital chain. Someone like Mayor Duggan would make very sensible choices for the state of Michigan, free of party constraints. You can imagine someone doing that at the national level. Millions of Americans would love to see that happen. I have a feeling that the right independent ticket could galvanize a tremendous amount of energy, because more and more Americans sense that the status quo isn't working and that neither party has our interests at heart or wants to solve the tougher problems. Elon Musk is clearly still very new to politics. Why do you think he knows what it would take to build a third party that could actually overcome all the hurdles that exist in our 2-party system? Elon has built world-class companies from nothing more than an idea multiple times, and in this instance, you have the vast majority of Americans who are hungry for a new approach, as evidenced by the overwhelming response to Elon's poll and to every other poll that shows that not only are half of Americans saying they're independent, but more than two thirds are saying that the current political system is not working. I'm happy to spell it out for Elon or anyone else who wants to head down this road: A third party can succeed very quickly. Just to throw some numbers out to you, there are over 500,000 locally elected officials around the country, and up to 70 percent of those races are not meaningfully contested. Up to 10 percent of those positions go unfilled, and thousands of those positions are technically non-partisan, which includes many, many mayors and county executives. So if the Forward Party were to simply start recruiting and contesting at scale, which you could do with a certain level of resources, you could have thousands, even tens of thousands, of locally elected officials within one cycle. You could have several U.S. senators and a very serious presidential ticket within the next several years. At some point you have to wonder, 'OK, when do the American people raise their hands and say, 'I get it. This system is not meant to deliver good things. It's meant to deliver me thinking that my neighbor is bad and out to get me'?' Eventually, enough of us have to get together and say, let's create a positive, independent political movement that can drive us towards solutions, and also is able to say, 'You and I don't agree on everything, but you're a good person. I believe in your good will.' I don't think that goodness or character are somehow confined to any one party or another. I don't think that people on the opposite side are my enemies, and let's create a system that actually will make us feel good about our future. Even if every last measure does not line up with me, I know that the people who are adopting it actually are making earnest, sincere efforts to move us forward. Do you think Musk is a good person? Or does the desire to recruit people who also want to create a third party trump any character assessments? I'm someone who tends to judge people by their actions more than anything else. And Elon Musk has done more for sustainability on this planet than virtually any other human, and that's something that I think is incredibly estimable and admirable. I've been in public life now for a number of years, and I'm sure I've said or done things that people can brandish and say, 'Oh, I disagree with this person.' I live my life trying to use actions as the guiding principle. I try to hold other people to a standard where actions and impacts are much more important than statements or misstatements. If Musk were serious about building a third party, what do you think the path would look like with the help of his money and social media platform? It would be very straightforward. I've spent several years looking at it. You can start with candidates like Mike Duggan, who are running as independents in very significant races, in this case, for the governorship of Michigan. You could energize tens of thousands of local candidates and wind up with thousands of elected officials very, very quickly. You could create a fulcrum in the U.S. Senate. I call it the Legislator Liberation Fund, where you could offer to buy out senators or members of Congress from their contract with their current party by funding their next election, and they could vote their conscience. There are a lot of legislators who are on the verge of retirement who might take that and say, 'Okay, I don't have to grovel before the donors for the last number of years. I can actually try and fix American politics.' There are multiple members of Congress I've spoken to whose ears are very, very open to that kind of offer. In the scheme of things, none of the things I'm talking about are that expensive for someone with a certain level of resources. I'll give you the opportunity to make a direct sales pitch to Musk: What would you say to him in this moment to get him on board and help fund the Forward Party or the creation of a new party? Elon, the political class will never get serious about putting America on a path to sustainability, and you've seen it up close. You know that if it's going to happen, it's going to be from some new force in American politics. Help us build it.
