Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said on Friday that the Trump administration’s request to claw back nearly $5 billion in previously approved spending is “a clear violation of the law.”

President Donald Trump’s latest attempt to target funds that Congress already has voted for sets up another showdown over the administration’s effort to assert more power over budgetary matters.

Collins, the Republican chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the administration’s request to rescind $4.9 billion in foreign aid appears to be an end run around Congress, since it’s being proposed so close to the end of the fiscal year.

Such a proposal, which includes more than $800 million in peacekeeping spending in Africa, is considered a pocket rescission, since the funding would expire, regardless of whether Congress acts before Sept. 30. No president has attempted such a move in nearly 50 years and its legality has been questioned.

“Given that this package was sent to Congress very close to the end of the fiscal year when the funds are scheduled to expire, this is an apparent attempt to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval,” Collins said in a written statement Friday.

Collins also cited the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office’s position that such moves are illegal.

“GAO has concluded that this type of rescission is unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act,” she said referring to the 1974 law that ruled impoundments are illegal. “Article I of the Constitution makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse. Any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”

Rep. Chellie Pingree of Maine, D-1st District, also blasted the request.

“The Constitution is clear: This is a flagrant affront to Congress’s power of the purse,” she said in a written statement. “The programs and initiatives the president is trying to stop … had bipartisan support. This president believes that only his priorities matter. It’s wrong, it’s dangerous, and it underscores this administration’s increasingly authoritarian behavior.”

Sen. Susan Collins, center, talks Thursday with attendees during the Maine Sheriffs Association breakfast at Joseph’s by the Sea in Old Orchard Beach. York County Sheriff William King Jr. is to the right of Collins. (Daryn Slover/Staff Photographer)

This is the second formal request to claw back spending that was allocated by Congress through a normally bipartisan appropriations process that often involves tradeoffs between the parties to pass a budget. But lawmakers on both sides have criticized the process as being broken, since lawmakers have not passed traditional budget bills in recent years and have instead relied on short-term funding patches.

In June, Congress approved Trump’s request to claw back $9.4 billion in previously approved spending for global health programs and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Collins opposed that request, but it passed anyway after Vice President JD Vance was called upon to break a 50-50 tie in the Senate.

Following that vote, Trump’s budget director, Russell Vought, signaled that additional requests would be forthcoming and also advocated for a more partisan appropriations process.

Collins voted to confirm Vought, despite his views that the president can withhold congressionally appropriated funding that he does not support.

The latest request seeks to claw back:

• $3.2 billion of the $3.9 billion appropriated to the U.S. Agency for International Development.

• $322 million of $714 million for State Department contributions from the USAID-State Department Democracy Trust Fund.

• $521 million of the $1.5 billion allocated to the State Department’s contributions to international organizations.

• $393 million of the $1.2 billion in State Department contributions to United Nations peacekeeping activities.

• $445 million of $820 million in other peacekeeping aid in Africa.

The latest move also comes as Collins and Senate Appropriations Committee co-chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., have been working to tighten up appropriations bills to give the administration less wiggle room to refuse spending allocations.

The New York Times reported last week that the pair are adding detailed spending tables to bills they hope will force the administration to obey Congress’s directives. They also added new reporting requirements, although those changes could unravel in the House, which has generally been more supportive of Trump’s priorities.

Murray also blasted the Trump administration’s latest move.

“Russell Vought would like us all to believe that making this rescissions request just weeks away from the end of the fiscal year provides some sort of get-out-of-jail free card for this administration to simply not spend investments Congress has made; it emphatically does not,” she said in a statement.” Legal experts have made clear this scheme is illegal and so have my Republican colleagues.”

Collins said Friday that the president instead should work with appropriators to cut unwanted spending though the normal appropriations process when Congress reconvenes next week, noting that the current funding bill already contains 70 rescissions.

“Instead of this attempt to undermine the law, the appropriate way is to identify ways to reduce excessive spending through the bipartisan, annual appropriations process,” she said. “Congress approves rescissions regularly as part of this process.”