Lawyers for the government had said it would miss a deadline to release more than $1.5 billion in payments for past aid work and sought a late intervention from the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday night paused a lower court-imposed midnight deadline to restart $2 billion in foreign aid payments after the Trump administration paused 10,000 awards.

Chief Justice John Roberts on Wednesday paused a court-imposed midnight deadline that would have required the Trump administration to release $2 billion in frozen foreign aid, a goal that the government has claimed it is unable to meet.