The U.S. Department of Justice said it "carefully and individually" reviewed thousands of public safety grants before canceling hundreds of the agreements earlier this year and urged a D.C. federal judge to toss a class action contesting the grant terminations.

Allegations that the DOJ's Office of Justice Programs indiscriminately scrapped $820 million in grants are "unfounded and wrong," the department said in a motion to dismiss Monday. Instead, it argued, the DOJ reviewed more than 11,000 open OJP awards, starting in February, before deciding that 376 discretionary grants "no longer effectuated DOJ priorities."

The DOJ claimed those grants represent a "tiny fraction" of OJP's open grant awards, pushing back on the plaintiffs' allegations of an "en masse" termination.

"The funds allocated under those agreements are legally available until expended, and DOJ intends to re-obligate them for new projects that more directly advance agency priorities," the department said in its motion, adding that "there is no legal basis for the court to order DOJ to restore lawfully terminated grants and keep paying for programs that the executive branch views as inconsistent with the interests of the United States."

The filing responds to a proposed class action launched last month by the Vera Institute of Justice, Center for Children & Youth Justice, Stop AAPI Hate, FORCE Detroit and Health Resources in Action. The organizations, which focus on community violence intervention, allege the cancellation of grants funding those efforts poses "dangerous, dire, and possibly deadly consequences." 

The groups are seeking a preliminary injunction to keep funds flowing, which the DOJ's Monday motion opposed.

The suit asserted the terminations are unconstitutionally vague, exceed OJP's authority and run afoul of the Administrative Procedure Act. The plaintiffs also said the cutoffs violate the Constitution's separation of powers, Congress' power over the federal purse and the president's duty to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed" — in this instance, congressional appropriations. 

The complaint has drawn support from the state of Washington and 17 other Democratic attorneys general, which said in an amicus brief Friday that "OJP's funding cuts impair public safety in our states by threatening programs aimed at violence reduction and prevention."

The DOJ countered Monday that the litigation boils down to "a run-of-the mill contract dispute" that belongs in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims — a familiar counterargument pressed by the Trump administration as it fights a litany of other suits contesting its federal grant cancellations.

Even if the case could be litigated in the federal district court, it still falls flat, the DOJ argued. The plaintiffs don't have a "protected property interest" in their grant money that would give them due process protections, the department said, and the DOJ intends to redirect the funding to fulfill its priorities.

The OJP has also given grant recipients an avenue to administratively appeal the termination of their grants within 30 days, the motion says. The plaintiff organizations did not leverage that option, the DOJ said, instead choosing to "thrust an emergency motion on this court."

"And because the termination letters outlined DOJ's current policy priorities, plaintiffs could have meaningfully explained why their grant programs aligned with those priorities," the motion says. "Indeed, numerous terminated grant recipients have done so, and DOJ has already sustained several appeals and restored funding."

A DOJ spokesperson declined to comment beyond the filing Tuesday. Democracy Forward, which represents the plaintiffs, did not immediately respond.

The plaintiffs are represented by Lisa Newman, Jennifer Fountain Connolly, Brian Netter, Cortney Robinson, Somil Trivedi and Skye L. Perryman of the Democracy Forward Foundation and Joshua Perry, Joshua Stanton and E. Danya Perry of Perry Law.

The federal defendants are represented by Yaakov M. Roth, Andrew I. Warden and John Bailey of the DOJ's Civil Division.

The case is Vera Institute of Justice et al. v. U.S. Department of Justice et al., case number 1:25-cv-01643, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

--Editing by Marygrace Anderson.