WASHINGTON – The Trump administration on Monday asked the Supreme Court for an emergency order to keep billions of dollars in foreign aid frozen.

The crux of the legal fight is over nearly $5 billion in congressionally approved aid that President Donald Trump last month said he would not spend, invoking disputed authority that was last used by a president roughly 50 years ago.

Last week, U.S. District Judge Amir Ali ruled that the Republican administration’s decision to withhold the funding was likely illegal.

Trump told House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in a letter on Aug. 28 that he would not spend $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch.

He used what’s known as a pocket rescission. That is when a president submits a request to Congress toward the end of a current budget year to not spend the approved money. The late notice means Congress cannot act on the request in the required 45-day window and the money goes unspent.

Ali said Congress would have to approve the rescission proposal for the administration to withhold the money.

The law is “explicit that it is congressional action — not the President’s transmission of a special message — that triggers rescission of the earlier appropriations,” he wrote.

The administration turned to the high court after a panel of federal appellate judges declined to block Ali’s ruling.

Justice Department lawyers told a federal judge last month that another $6.5 billion in aid that had been subject to the freeze would be spent before the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

The case has been winding its way through the courts for months.

Nonprofit organizations that sued the government have said the funding freeze breaks federal law and has shut down funding for even the most urgent lifesaving programs abroad.