Two activist judges appointed by Barack Obama have forced the Trump administration to dip into emergency contingency funds to partially cover SNAP benefits for millions of Americans caught in the crossfire of the ongoing “Schumer Shutdown.”
This blatant interference from the bench underscores the deep-state sabotage that’s been plaguing President Trump’s second term from day one, as radical Democrats led by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer hold the nation’s budget hostage.
The shutdown was entirely avoidable. President Trump and House Republicans put forward a clean funding bill that prioritized border security, military readiness, and tax relief for hardworking families.
But Schumer and his band of obstructionists in the Senate refused to budge, insisting on billions more for their pet projects like funding illegal immigrants’ healthcare.
On Friday, two Obama judges, John McConnell in Providence and Indira Talwani in Boston, ruled that the Trump administration must use available contingency funds to continue SNAP benefits despite the shutdown.
The judgment came in response to lawsuits filed by Democrat‐led states, cities, and non‐profits arguing that halting benefits would cause irreparable harm to tens of millions of Americans.
According to a sworn declaration filed in federal court by Patrick A. Penn, Deputy Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services,the USDA was compelled by district court orders out of Massachusetts and Rhode Island to “deplete SNAP contingency funds completely.”
The filing reveals that the USDA began FY2026 with roughly $6 billion in contingency funds, much of which was already spent on administrative costs and nutrition block grants for Puerto Rico and American Samoa.
Now, thanks to court mandates, only $4.65 billion remains, enough to pay half of what is owed to current SNAP recipients for November.
USDA officials had explored alternative options, including borrowing from Child Nutrition funds, the account that feeds 29 million schoolchildren every day, but concluded such a move would devastate the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs.
While Democrats and activist judges continue to play politics with America’s food programs, the Trump Administration is being forced, by judicial decree, to spend emergency funds meant for disasters and new applicants just to keep benefits flowing during a shutdown Democrats caused.
The Gateway Pundit previously reported that USDA Sec. Brooke Rollins said her team has reviewed $100 billion in SNAP spending and already identified widespread abuse and criminal activity.
“We have found, after studying about $100 billion in spending, thousands and thousands of illegal uses of the EBT card. We have been moving people off of SNAP. We’ve got almost 700,000 people, I think, that we’ve moved off just since the President took office. We’ve arrested about 118 people. So this has been ongoing.”
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