Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene R-GA on Thursday called for “an audit of funds to Ukraine” and lambasted the Biden admin for the US border crisis.
Flanked by other congressional Republicans, Greene addressed reporters to explain the resolution introduced in the House.
Greene noted that the money sent for the protection of the Ukrainian border could have been used instead to secure the U.S.-Mexico border.
“What this will do is it will hold our government accountable for all of the funding for Ukraine,” Greene said of the resolution.
Greene highlighted some of the funding that the U.S. has allocated for Ukraine in the months since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began.
Greene said Americans “deserve to know where their money is going and how it’s being spent.”
She compared the billions of dollars sent to Ukraine with the amount of money border officials say they need to patrol the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We are completely protecting another country’s border and also waging a proxy war with Russia,” Greene said. “We had five million people cross our border illegally since Joe Biden took office, let’s compare that to how many Russians have invaded Ukraine, 82 thousand Russians have invaded Ukraine.”
“President Trump’s border wall would have only cost $22 billion. With the money we’ve sent to Ukraine, we could have already secured our border, but we’re not doing that,” Greene said.
On Thursday Green also tweeted a video of a group of people, whom Greene identified as Ukrainian soldiers being used as pawns.
“It is heartbreaking to see these disabled Ukrainian soldiers here in the halls of Congress being used as pawns to pressure our Congress to give American’s hard-earned tax dollars to Zelensky,” Greene tweeted. “I’m calling for an audit of funds to Ukraine and to fund and secure our border.”
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In related news this week, the U.S. has for the first time struck a deal with South Korea to purchase thousands of rounds of 155mm ammunition, offsetting diminished domestic stocks after the U.S. has supplied Ukraine with nearly one billion rounds of the powerful munitions, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Routing the deal through the U.S. will allow South Korea to maintain the appearance of avoiding complicity in Ukraine’s attacks on Russian forces while providing the nearly 100,000 rounds to Ukraine, according to the WSJ, which cited U.S. officials familiar with the matter.
A senior official confirmed that the shells are destined for Ukraine if the deal is finalized, as U.S. stockpiles have cratered over recent months, Reuters reported.
The level of 155mm combat rounds, fired by the howitzer weapons system, in U.S. stockpiles had become “uncomfortably low,” a Pentagon official told the WSJ in August. The ammunition deficit has cratered even further as of November, the outlet reported.
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The U.S. announced an additional shipment of 21,000 155mm rounds on Nov. 10, bringing the total to 924,000, according to a DOD fact sheet. Ukraine burns through between 4,000 and 7,000 artillery rounds per day, including the 155mm rounds, NBC News reported Thursday.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with South Korean defense minister Lee Jong-sup at the Pentagon on Nov. 3, where they agreed to pursue a deal, the WSJ reported. An unnamed South Korean company has since engaged in discussions with the U.S. to fill the ammunition order, the country’s defense ministry and a Pentagon spokesperson told the WSJ.
The South Korean defense ministry added that South Korea intended to adhere to its policy against supplying lethal aid to Ukraine. “The negotiations are happening under the premise that the U.S. will be the final user,” the South Korean defense ministry told the WSJ in a statement.
Earlier in November, the U.S. drained artillery from its stockpiles in South Korea to supplement U.S. stocks, the WSJ reported.
“United States Forces Korea has been requested to support this effort by providing some of its equipment,” Col. Isaac Taylor, a spokesman for the U.S. command in South Korea, said in a statement to the WSJ.
“This has zero impact on our operations and our ability to execute on our ironclad commitment to the defense of our ally, the Republic of Korea,” he added, using South Korea’s formal name.
The deal comes as North Korea has accelerated the rate of missile tests and fired hundreds of artillery shells into the border zone intended to provide a demilitarized buffer between the opposing countries.
“Any potential sales or transfers of equipment are always closely evaluated against current and future U.S. and ROK military readiness requirements on the peninsula, and will not detract from our defensive posture or readiness to respond against regional threats,” Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Marty Meiners told the WSJ, using an abbreviation for South Korea’s formal name.
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