JD Vance tells Washington, 'I don't trust you,' demands White House release audit report on Ukraine spending
Freshman senator tells Tucker Carlson Americans deserve transparency
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Freshman Republican Sen. JD Vance is calling on the White House to release a complete audit report detailing the exact amount of financial support the United States has provided to Ukraine since February 2022 and how it has been spent as Congress weighs additional funding.
"Whether you support Ukrainian funding or not, the fundamental question is, we deserve, and the American people deserve to know how their money is being spent, especially when we're talking about $120 billion dollars of it," Vance said Wednesday on "Tucker Carlson Tonight."
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Republican Senator-elect J.D. Vance of Ohio. (AP Photo/Jay LaPrete)
Earlier this week, Vance, R-Ohio, drafted a letter addressed to the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young demanding a full "crosscutting" report to provide the public with "insight" into how the billions of U.S. dollars in financial assistance for Ukraine has been spent.
The letter, obtained exclusively by Fox News Digital, is making its rounds among Republicans in both the Senate and the House of Representatives. GOP Rep. Dan Bishop of North Carolina has signed onto the letter, as well as GOP Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri.
"I would just like transparency here," Vance told Carlson. "Let’s just remind ourselves that over the past 20 years, the bipartisan foreign policy consensus in Washington, D.C. has been wrong about Afghanistan, they’ve been wrong about Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and now with $120 billion of American taxpayer money on the line in a potential war of nuclear power, they are basically saying trust us. My response is, absolutely not. I don’t trust you, I don’t trust your motives, and I certainly don’t trust your judgment."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Vance's assessment refers to the most recent omnibus spending bill, which brought the total budget authority for Ukraine and countries "impacted by the situation in Ukraine" to $114 billion.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses a joint meeting of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington on Dec. 21, 2022. (AP/Carolyn Kaster)
"However, this amount does not include reprogramming, and transfers, for which the administration has asked for additional authorities in each of its four supplemental requests, dating back to March 2, 2022," Vance wrote in the letter.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Taken together, the four Ukraine supplemental spending bills passed since the escalation of the Ukraine/Russia conflict in February of 2022 amount to arguably the 4th largest discretionary appropriations bill."
Vance said those opposed to an audit "don’t want to be forced to acknowledge a lot of the money we’ve sent to Ukraine hasn’t been well spent."
"There are a lot of corrupt people probably getting rich off of it," he said.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"The Department of Homeland Security, the department that allegedly is supposed to secure our border, also does aviation security and a lot of other things. It receives $60 billion, [that's] half of the money being sent to Ukraine. Where is it going, how is it being spent? It is our right to know," he continued.
The letter comes just days after the U.S. committed the single largest defensive aid package to Ukraine yet after pledging $3 billion in additional security assistance as it looks to change the "dynamic on the battlefield."
Sen. JD Vance is demanding more accountability from the White House over how Ukraine aid is being spent. (AP Photo/Tom E. Puskar, File)
"By law, the Biden Administration is supposed to tell us exactly how that money is being spent. We are putting down a marker…" Vance told Carlson. He demanded a response by Feb. 7.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Earlier in the show, the "Tucker Carlson Tonight" host devoted a significant portion of the on-air segment to the topic, remarking that lawmakers promoting the war in Washington are personally "benefiting from it."
"This is crazy, but there's actually a reason for it. People are getting very rich from this. That's why Washington supports it," Carlson said.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"Some of the people who are promoting this war that's killing endless number of Ukrainians are personally benefiting from it. But the cost for us is profound, in fact, we're sending so much military to Ukraine…that we're running out of military equipment to protect our own country," he told viewers.
"In other words, you can defend Ukraine's borders, or you can defend the United States of America," Carlson concluded. "Which is it?"
Fox News' Brooke Singman contributed to this report.