ATLANTA, Ga. - President Donald Trump is using a precedent set by one of his predecessors to justify his refusal to spend almost $5 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid.

In a letter Thursday to House Speaker Mike Johnson, Trump said he is using a procedure known as pocket recissions, a technique last used in 1977 by Jimmy Carter, the president from Georgia.

The funding would be cut from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.

A pocket rescission allows the president to cancel previously appropriated funds without requiring Congressional approval. This differs from a “line-item veto,” which is a power to strike specific items from a spending bill, but pocket rescission specifically targets funds that have already been appropriated.

The 1974 Impoundment Control Act was passed in response to President Richard Nixon’s use of impoundment to halt spending on programs he opposed. The act significantly curtailed the president’s ability to unilaterally impound funds.

But both Presidents Gerald Ford and Carter used the recission process outlined in the act. A 2009 U.S. Government Accountability Office report mentions Carter proposed 33 rescissions, though these were later converted to deferrals by President Ronald Reagan.

While the act was designed to limit presidential power, it also provided a defined mechanism for presidents to propose changes to spending, which Congress then had to consider.

Congress can vote on pulling back the funds or sustaining them, but by proposing the rescission so close to Sept. 30, the White House ensures the money won’t be spent and the funding lapses.

Trump had previously sought to get congressional backing for rescissions and succeeded in doing so in July when the House and the Senate approved $9 billion worth of cuts. Those rescissions cut back funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid.

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