President Trump’s new effort to cancel funding previously approved by Congress through "pocket rescissions" is setting up a political land mine for Congress as it races to avert a government shutdown by Sept. 30.

The so-called pocket rescission comes as Democrats had warned that efforts by the administration to unilaterally claw back money would seriously undermine the fragile bipartisanship required to fund the government.

And some Republicans are also sounding the alarm, questioning whether the move is legal and saying it undermines the will of Congress.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Friday that the latest announcement by the administration is evidence that “Trump and Congressional Republicans are hellbent on rejecting bipartisanship and ‘going it alone’ this fall.”

“As the country stares down next month’s government funding deadline on September 30th, it is clear that neither President Trump nor congressional Republicans have any plan to avoid a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown,” he said.

Senate Republicans’ chief funding negotiator, Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine), meanwhile, said “any effort to rescind appropriated funds without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.”

“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,” she said, while also citing Congress’s “power of the purse.”

“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 added, noting........

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