Maine sues Trump administration after funding freeze over transgender athlete debacle: 'They are not above the law'

Maine's attorney general filed a lawsuit against the federal government this week that stated the administration did not follow proper procedure when it cut off federal funding to the state.

The feud stems from President Donald Trump's executive order aimed at preventing men from participating in women's sports and entering their changing rooms.

Maine's Governor Janet Mills (D) famously told Trump in February that she would see him "in court" over the issue, and in March, the Civil Rights Office said the Maine Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and a Maine high school were each in violation of Title IX.

Just days later, the University of Maine System said it would comply with the new federal standards after it revealed it lost millions in grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

'The Trump Administration is illegally withholding grant funds.'

However, the state as a whole did not comply, and it is now those Department of Agriculture funds that are at the center of the new lawsuit.

After the Department of Education issued a "final warning" to Maine in early April, the state has now responded with a filing that said the federal agency never conducted an investigation of its own, did not notify the state, and did not report its findings to Congress.

"Under the banner of keeping children safe, the Trump Administration is illegally withholding grant funds that go to keeping children fed," Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said, according to Townhall. "This is just another example where no law or consequence appears to restrain the administration as it seeks capitulation to its lawlessness."

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins had told the state their "defiance of federal law" had cost them; and moreover, her language was categorized as that of a "hostage taker" in the court filing.

"Sounding more like a hostage taker seeking a ransom payment than a cabinet-level federal official," the court filing said. "Secretary Rollins warned that '[t]his is only the beginning' of the federal government’s funding freezes directed at the State of Maine, and that the State is 'free to end it at any time' by capitulating to the President’s demands regarding the participation of transgender athletes in school sports," the filing added, per Maine Public.

While Secretary Rollins had assured parents that all children who were being fed by the state would have no interruption in their service, Maine's attorney general said staff in the Child Nutrition Program were allegedly unable to access money used to reimburse organizations who feed low-income children.

This left the state with "no way to get funds" to schools and other facilities to feed children, the filing claimed.

"The President and his cabinet secretaries do not make the law and they are not above the law, and this action is necessary to remind the President that Maine will not be bullied into violating the law," AG Frey added.

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