Some Republican Congressmen Challenge Funding of Ukraine

In the aftermath of the Nov. 8 midterm elections, which gave Republicans a slim majority in the House for the session beginning in January, a number of Republican congressmen are demanding that the Biden administration stop the money flow to Ukraine and that an audit be carried out to determine exactly where the already delivered aid went. Just one week after the elections, on Nov. 15, the Biden administration sent a request to the Congress for approval of a huge new $37.5 billion aid package for Ukraine, including military supplies and humanitarian aid.

That led Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie to comment on Facebook that “Biden’s latest Ukraine spending request will put the U.S. Congress on a trajectory to spend TWICE as much money on Ukraine as we spend on roads and bridges in a year. No one can tell you where it’s all gone or going. Demand a halt. Demand an audit. Demand an Inspector General…. We should immediately stop all payments to Ukraine and begin a thorough audit of the $60 billion that Joe Biden and Congress have already sent there.” Rep. Massie was backed by his colleague from Georgia,  Marjorie Taylor Greene, and three others, who have just introduced a bill calling for an audit.

Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona, for his part, warned that he would not support President Biden’s request “to continue the needless death and destruction on both sides of this war.” Pointing to the U.S.’s $31 trillion national debt, record-high inflation, and a disaster at the southern border, he wrote that it would be “a huge error for Congress to use this lame duck session to fast-track Biden’s shameful request for taxpayers’ dollars to perpetuate a needless war.”

Rep. Gosar also raised important questions, noting the Ukrainian regime’s notorious corruption, including deals involving the President’s son Hunter Biden, as well as the FTX operation with crypto-coin (cf. above). However, beyond these aspects, he reiterated his essential point: “[W]hat we need is peace, and I continue to invite Russian Federation President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Arizona to engage in peace negotiations.”

We can add to this picture the intervention by Tulsi Gabbard, a former presidential candidate and congresswoman, who has since left the Democratic Party. She attacked President Biden and the Washington elite for authorizing tens of billions of taxpayer dollars, which end up in the pockets of defense contractors and of corrupt bureaucrats and oligarchs in Ukraine – with no questions asked.