22 House Republicans are Calling for Greater Accountability on the $40 Billion Ukraine Aid Bill

May 10, 2022 will be remembered as the day that DC’s political class stabbed Americans’ in the back by approving a $40 billion aid bill to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion. Never mind that this conflict holds little to no strategic value for the United States. Nor is it wise to get tangled up in a military conflict with a nuclear power such as Russia. 

These inconvenient facts did not register with the overwhelming majority of representatives as evidenced by the 388-57 vote in favor of this bill. The 57 votes against this bill all came from Republican House members. Even juicier was how Democrats voted for this bill. Glenn Greenwald and Anthony Tobin noted in a Substack post that all House Democrats, including progressive factions such as the Squad, voted in favor of this bill. 

Similarly, the US Senate voted for this bill in a rather quick fashion. It was passed on a vote of 81-11. All 11 NO voters were Republicans. Most prominent among them was Kentucky Senator Rand Paul, who initially blocked the bill.

As Greenwald and Tobin also noted, even Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders voted in support of this bill, “seemingly in direct contradiction to Sanders’ February 8 op-ed in The Guardian warning of the severe dangers of bipartisan escalation of the war.” 

Due to the lack of transparency and oversight on how this money destined to Ukraine would be spent, 22 Republicans sent a letter to the Biden regime on May 23 calling on the administration to provide increased assurances and specificity on how this money would be spent and how the arms would be used. New Mexico Congresswoman Yvette Herrel led this effort to hold the Biden regime accountable. 

The letter calls attention to the dangers of the U.S.’s relentless financing of a proxy war in Ukraine. “We write today to express grave concern about the lack of oversight and accountability for the money and weapons recently approved by Congress for Ukraine,” the letter started.

“The aid package approved by Congress provides unprecedented funding for a foreign conflict in which the United States is not fighting, while there have been no significant hearings or substantive briefings on the use of the money and weapons being provided at taxpayer expense”, the letter continued. 

These concerned Republican House members raised the prospect of sophisticated arms landing into the laps of terrorist organizations. They alluded to a well-documented history of illegal arms-trafficking taking place in Ukraine, which is among the largest black markets for arms in Europe. The letter manifested the following concerns: 

According to a 2017 Small Arms Survey briefing on arms trafficking, over 300,000 small arms disappeared from Ukraine between 2013 and 2015 and only 13 percent were recovered. Criminal networks, corrupt officials, and underpaid military personnel can make a profitable business from the sale of arms from Ukrainian military stockpiles. For example, in 2019, the Ukrainian Security Service uncovered a plot by Ukrainian soldiers to sell 40 RGD-5 grenades, 15 grenade launchers, 30 grenade detonators, and 2,454 rounds of ammunition for 75,000 Ukrainian hryvnia or around $2,900.

Greenwald and Tobin illustrated the gravity of this aid package:

Additionally, at $40 billion, this is an extraordinary amount of military assistance, a large percentage of which will go directly to private defense contractors. In the last year alone, the United States will have provided Ukraine with more military aid than any country in the last two decades, and twice as much military assistance as the yearly cost of war in Afghanistan, even when American troops were on the ground.  

There are many questions to be asked about what the endgame is in Ukraine. This humble writer believes that the US Deep State is hell-bent in fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian. To do so, the Deep State and its satrapies in Europe will try to fund an insurgency in Ukraine no matter the financial and human costs. 

If the US were to play a proactive role in this conflict, it would be to play a mediatory role and help Russia and Ukraine reach a negotiated settlement. However, the US has a poor diplomatic corps and sub-par foreign policy elite these days. As a result, the best course of action is to pass the buck to Europe and let Russia, Ukraine, and other actors in the vicinity settle this conflict. 

All told, this geopolitical tragedy is of no concern to the US and it should do everything possible to cut military aid to Ukraine and stop using other Eastern European countries as sacrificial lambs against Russia.