federal appeal court

States administering a federal food aid program serving about 42 million Americans faced uncertainty Monday over whether they can — and should — provide full monthly benefits during an ongoing legal battle involving the U.S. government shutdown.

President Donald Trump’s administration over the weekend demanded that states “undo” full benefits that were paid under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during a one-day window between when a federal judge ordered full funding and a Supreme Court justice put a temporary pause on that order.

A federal appeals court in Boston left the full benefits order in place on Sunday, though the Supreme Court order ensures the government won’t have to pay out for at least 48 hours. The Trump administration is also expected to ask the justices to step in again, and Congress is considering whether to fund SNAP as part of a proposal to end the government shutdown.

Some states are warning of “catastrophic operational disruptions” if the Trump administration does not reimburse them for those SNAP benefits they already authorized. Meanwhile, other states are providing partial monthly SNAP benefits with federal money or using their own funds to load electronic benefit cards for SNAP recipients.

Millions receive aid while others wait

Trump’s administration initially said SNAP benefits would not be available in November because of the government shutdown. After some states and nonprofit groups sued, two judges each ruled the administration could not skip November’s benefits entirely.

The administration then said it would use an emergency reserve fund to provide 65% of the maximum monthly benefit. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said that wasn’t good enough, and ordered full funding for SNAP benefits by Friday.

Some states acted quickly to direct their EBT vendors to disburse full monthly benefits to SNAP recipients. Millions of people in those states received funds to buy groceries before Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson put McConnell’s order on hold Friday night, pending further deliberation by an appeals court.

Millions more people still have not received SNAP payments for November, because their states were waiting on further guidance from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers SNAP.

Trump’s administration has argued that the judicial order to provide full benefits violates the Constitution by infringing on the spending power of the legislative and executive branches.

States are fighting attempt to freeze SNAP benefits

On Sunday, the Trump administration said states had moved too quickly and erroneously released full SNAP benefits after last week’s rulings.

“States must immediately undo any steps taken to issue full SNAP benefits for November 2025,” Patrick Penn, deputy undersecretary of Agriculture, wrote to state SNAP directors. He warned that states could face penalties if they did not comply.

Wisconsin, which was among the first to load full benefits after McConnell’s order, had its federal reimbursement frozen. As a result, the state’s SNAP account could be depleted as soon Monday, leaving no money to reimburse stores that sell food to SNAP recipients, according to a court filing submitted by those that had sued.

Some Democratic governors vowed to challenge any federal attempt to claw back money.

In Connecticut, Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont said “those who received their benefits should not worry about losing them.”

“No, Connecticut does not need to take back SNAP benefits already sent to the 360,000 people who depend on them for food and who should have never been caught in the middle of this political fight,” Lamont said. “We have their back.”

Lieb and Mulvihill write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; and Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — A federal appeals court on Thursday gave new life to President Trump’s bid to erase his hush money conviction, ordering a lower court to reconsider its decision to keep the case in state court instead of moving it to federal court.

A three-judge panel in the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein erred by failing to consider “important issues relevant” to Trump’s request to move the New York case to federal court, where he can seek to have it thrown out on presidential immunity grounds.

But, the appeals court judges said, they “express no view” on how Hellerstein should rule.

Hellerstein, who was nominated by Democratic President Bill Clinton, twice denied Trump’s requests to move the case. The first time was after Trump’s March 2023 indictment; the second followed Trump’s May 2024 conviction and a subsequent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that presidents and former presidents cannot be prosecuted for official acts.

In the later ruling, at issue in Thursday’s decision, Hellerstein said Trump’s lawyers had failed to meet the high burden of proof for changing jurisdiction and that Trump’s conviction for falsifying business records involved his personal life, not official actions that the Supreme Court ruled are immune from prosecution.

Hellerstein’s ruling, which echoed his previous denial, “did not consider whether certain evidence admitted during the state court trial relates to immunized official acts or, if so, whether evidentiary immunity transformed” the hush money case into one that relates to official acts, the appeals court panel said.

The three judges said Hellerstein should closely review evidence that Trump claims relate to official acts.

If Hellerstein finds the prosecution relied on evidence of official acts, the judges said, he should weigh whether Trump can argue those actions were taken as part of his White House duties, whether Trump “diligently sought” to have the case moved to federal court and whether the case can even be moved to federal court now that Trump has been convicted and sentenced in state court.

Ruling came after oral arguments in June

Judges Susan L. Carney, Raymond J. Lohier Jr. and Myrna Pérez made their ruling after hearing arguments in June, when they spent more than an hour grilling Trump’s lawyer and the appellate chief for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office, which prosecuted the case and wants it to remain in state court.

Carney and Lohier were nominated to the court by Democratic President Barack Obama. Pérez was nominated by Democratic President Joe Biden.

“President Trump continues to win in his fight against Radical Democrat Lawfare,” a spokesperson for Trump’s legal team said in a statement. “The Supreme Court’s historic decision on Immunity, the Federal and New York State Constitutions, and other established legal precedent mandate that the Witch Hunt perpetrated by the Manhattan DA be immediately overturned and dismissed.”

Bragg’s office declined to comment.

Trump was convicted in May 2024 of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to conceal a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels, whose allegations of an affair with Trump threatened to upend his 2016 presidential campaign. Trump denies her claim, said he did nothing wrong and has asked a state appellate court to overturn the conviction.

It was the only one of the Republican’s four criminal cases to go to trial.

Trump team cites Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity

In trying to move the hush money case to federal court, Trump’s lawyers argued that federal officers, including former presidents, have the right to be tried in federal court for charges arising from “conduct performed while in office.” Part of the criminal case involved checks that Trump wrote while he was president.

Trump’s lawyer, Jeffrey Wall, argued that prosecutors rushed to trial instead of waiting for the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision. He also said they erred by showing jurors evidence that should not have been allowed under that ruling, such as former White House staffers describing how Trump reacted to news coverage of the hush money deal and tweets he sent while president in 2018.

“The district attorney holds the keys in his hand,” Wall told the three-judge panel in June. “He doesn’t have to introduce this evidence.”

In addition to reining in prosecutions of ex-presidents for official acts, the Supreme Court’s July 2024 ruling restricted prosecutors from pointing to official acts as evidence that a president’s unofficial actions were illegal.

Wall, a former acting U.S. solicitor general, called the president “a class of one,” telling the judges that “everything about this cries out for federal court.”

Steven Wu, the appellate chief for the district attorney’s office, countered that Trump was too late in seeking to move the case to federal court. Normally, such a request must be made within 30 days of an arraignment. Exceptions can be made if “good cause” is shown.

Hellerstein concluded that Trump hadn’t shown “good cause” to request a move to federal court as such a late stage. But the three-judge panel on Thursday said it “cannot be confident” that the judge “adequately considered issues” relevant to making that decision.

Wall, addressing the delay at oral arguments, said Trump’s team did not immediately seek to move the case to federal court because the defense was trying to resolve the matter by raising the immunity argument with the trial judge, Juan Merchan.

Merchan rejected Trump’s request to throw out the conviction on immunity grounds and sentenced him Jan. 10 to an unconditional discharge, leaving his conviction intact but sparing him any punishment.

Sisak writes for the Associated Press.