Greene’s Resolution of Inquiry requests US President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken provide the House with relevant information on how US taxpayer dollars are being used in Ukraine, Greene said in a statement.
"While the warmongers and the Biden Administration have sent over $113 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, our border patrol asked for just $15.46 billion to secure our southern border," the statement said.
Greene announced her intention to bring the bill forward a day prior in a US media appearance.
“It’s going to force Congress to give the American people an audit,” Greene said. “And that is exactly what the American people need, an audit of Ukraine, because we have no idea where all this money’s going.”
The bill is a resolution of inquiry, a function in the US House of Representatives used to request information from the Executive Branch of the federal government, which includes the White House and various federal law enforcement agencies. Greene noted that a similar attempt in the previous Democrat-controlled House had secured Republican support. The Republicans secured a narrow majority in the House in the November 2022 elections.
"While the warmongers and the Biden Administration have sent over $113 billion in foreign aid to Ukraine, our border patrol asked for just $15.46 billion to secure our southern border and stop the flow of Chinese-made, Mexican Cartel imported fentanyl and human trafficking into the United States," Greene's office said in a Friday news release announcing the motion.
She continued, noting that "President Trump's border wall would have cost only $22 billion to stop the more than 6 million aliens that have invaded our country illegally since Biden took office," saying the Russian operation in Ukraine "pales in comparison."
Immediately after the elections, Greene announced she would push for an audit of US aid to Ukraine, and has made several such announcements in the nearly two months since the new Congress was sworn in.
Aside from Republicans looking to score political points against the Democratic Biden administration, experts have also pointed to the more than $100 billion pledged to Ukraine, which includes weapons as well as aid to civilians and even financing for the government in Kiev, and the relative lack of oversight of how the money and the aid it is buying are being used. Accurate accounting has been a perennial failing for the Pentagon especially, which has repeatedly failed audits.
Last week, the inspectors general of several US federal agencies told US media they were ready for aggressive auditing of the aid if empowered to do so, including sending auditors to the front lines in Ukraine.
Nicole Angarella, the acting deputy inspector general for the US Agency for International Development (USAID), an arm of the US State Department, said that “we have been as creative and you know, out of the box, forward-leaning with the oversight we’ve been able to accomplish so far. But for real comprehensive, robust oversight, it can’t be done remotely.”
“The closer we are, the more comprehensive oversight will be,” she added.
On February 24, 2022Moscow launched a military operation in Ukraine after months of failed negotiations with NATO over “security red lines,” which included Ukraine potentially joining the alliance and the stationing of offensive NATO weapons on its soil. The operation aims to make Ukraine a neutral state and to end attacks on Russophone minorities in the region by neo-Nazis who enjoy the support of the government in Kiev.
Moscow’s fears, predicated on a historic use of Ukraine as an avenue through which invaders have attacked the Russian heartland as well as NATO’s moves in recent years to expand eastward, position dangerous long-range missiles in Eastern Europe, were dismissed by NATO, which regarded the red lines as a “non-starter.”
A year later, the United States, which told Kiev it had no reason to negotiate prior before the conflict began, has shown little indication it is ready to talk peace with Russia on equal terms, and plans to send main battle tanks, rockets, and other weapons to Ukraine have pushed ahead. However, other nations have advanced peace plans, including most recently China.