According to ABC News, the White House announced Friday evening that it was rescinding over $800 million in congressionally appropriated funds across a range of federal programs, invoking the Impoundment Control Act to deploy a so-called 'pocket rescission.'

The targeted programs span multiple agencies, including the Departments of Health and Human Services, Education, Housing and Urban Development, and Justice. The administration also claims DHS programs 'laundered taxpayer dollars' to provide welfare to undocumented immigrants.

The maneuver is unusual because of its timing. ABC News reports that pocket rescissions occur when the president asks Congress to cancel funds as the end of the fiscal year approaches; while Congress must approve rescissions, it has only 45 days to respond.

The Government Accountability Office's view, as described by ABC News, is that when there is not enough time for Congress to consider the request or for funds to be spent before they expire, the president is bypassing congressional authority over government funding.

The administration used a similar pocket rescission in 2025 for billions in foreign aid; the Supreme Court stayed a lower-court order requiring those funds to be obligated, while noting the stay 'should not be read as a final determination on the merits.'

The move drew an immediate rebuke from within the president's own party. Maine Republican Sen.

Susan Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, called the attempt a bid to 'undermine Congress's Constitutional power of the purse' and a 'clear violation of the law,' according to ABC News.

She said the independent GAO has concluded that pocket rescissions are unlawful and not permitted by the Impoundment Control Act.

ABC News also reports Collins alleged that OMB intentionally withheld the funds for months to execute the cancellation of appropriations approved on a bipartisan basis, saying: 'OMB is an agency of the executive branch. It does not get to decide which programs are worth funding.'

She pledged to work with colleagues to address what she called illegal actions.

The fight lands days before midterm elections that will determine the balance of power in Congress for the rest of Trump's second term, a context The Guardian's campaign coverage underscores.

Barack Obama, campaigning in Georgia, urged voters to treat the election as 'the circuit-breaker in the system,' saying it is Democrats' 'last, best chance' of reining in the administration.

With Collins promising congressional action and the GAO on record that the tactic is unlawful, the rescission package is likely to become an immediate test of Congress's power of the purse — and the Supreme Court's 2025 stay, which explicitly did not settle the merits, leaves the legality of the maneuver unresolved in the courts.