[Swordmaker]

"...unless Congress has enacted a law providing otherwise, the President must take care to ensure that appropriations are prudently obligated during their period of availability".

Did or did not the funds get obligated before the end of the fiscal year, the statutory requirement included in the law? Oh, they did.

The announcement from the GAO that conflicting policy was not a good enough explanation for withholding the funds is not their call; it is entirely a political statement. The spending authorization itself required an executive determination that sufficient changes be made in the levels of corruption in Ukraine before the release of any aid. Constitutionally, that cannot be delegated by Congress to any one other than the President.

There is nothing in the law that removes the President’s power under the Constitution to decide Foreign Aid and shifts that power over to Congress. That would take an amendment to the Constitution, and I don’t see that here, do you? That is the result of this law and that makes it unconstitutional. SCOTUS has ruled many times that you do not have to wait for a ruling to ignore unconstitutional laws. YOU are a poled steer who is comfortable waiting to be slaughtered. Fine, go join the Democrat Party. Oh, wait, you obviously already are a member; it drips from your every post on FR.

[semimojo]

The announcement from the GAO that conflicting policy was not a good enough explanation for withholding the funds is not their call; it is entirely a political statement.

Not so. They cite the ICA and other court and administrative rulings.

One example:

"Faithful execution of the law does not permit the President to substitute his own policy priorities for those that Congress has enacted into law. In fact, Congress was concerned about exactly these types of withholdings when it enacted and later amended the ICA. See H.R. Rep. No. 100-313, at 66–67 (1987); see also S. Rep. No. 93-688, at 75 (1974) (explaining that the objective was to assure that “the practice of reserving funds does not become a vehicle for furthering Administration policies and priorities at the expense of those decided by Congress”).

In fact, OMB doesn't even contest it. They accept that policy differences aren't a valid reason for deferring funds but argue that their reasons weren't policy related.

GAO disagreed.

The spending authorization itself required an executive determination that sufficient changes be made in the levels of corruption in Ukraine before the release of any aid. Constitutionally, that cannot be delegated by Congress to any one other than the President.

Nonsense.

...before President Trump ordered a halt to security assistance, the Secretary of Defense—in coordination with Secretary Pompeo—twice certified that Ukraine had made sufficient reforms to decrease corruption and increase accountability, and that the country could ensure accountability for U.S. provided military equipment.

You're not seriously arguing that the President can't delegate the notification to his SOS and/or SECDEF are you? Trump has to personally sign every administrative notification from The Executive to Congress?

There is nothing in the law that removes the President’s power under the Constitution to decide Foreign Aid and shifts that power over to Congress. That would take an amendment to the Constitution, and I don’t see that here, do you?

Again, the President can come up with any foreign policy that he wants. He just can't ignore Congress's constitutional control of the taxpayer's money when executing that policy.