Marjorie Taylor Greene seizes Ukraine anniversary to demand Congress audit over war spending

The right-wing congresswoman plans to re-introduce legislation she pushed in the last Congress.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Tucker Carlson’s Fox News program on Thursday that she will re-introduce a resolution to audit all spending for the war in Ukraine on its one-year anniversary.

Ms Greene announced that she will introduce the resolution on Friday despite the fact that the House is currently in recess. Ms Greene and many other House Republicans have vocally criticised US support for Ukraine after Russian President Vladimir Putin invaded the country.

Ms Greene told Mr Carlson that even House Foreign Affairs Chairman Michael McCaul voted to support the resolution after she introduced it in November of last year. She previously introduced the resolution with Representatives Matt Gaetz and Cory Mills of Florida, Andrew Clyde of Georgia and Thomas Massie of Kentucky.

“I’ll be introducing that on Friday,” she said. “Let me tell you what it’s going to do: It’s going to force Congress to give the American people an audit and that is exactly what the American people need. An audit of Ukraine.”

The legislation would require that the White House, the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State transmit “copies of all documents, charts, or tables, including notes from meetings, audio recordings, records (including telephone and email records, correspondence and any financial statements” regarding transactions for aid to Ukraine within 14 days of the resolution’s adoption.

Ms Greene is one of the most outspoken critics of American support for Ukraine. When President Joe Biden visited Kyiv on Presidents’ Day, the right-wing firebrand congresswoman accused the president of putting “America last.”

“There is not bipartisan support among the American people for fighting a war in Ukraine that does nothing except force them to pay for it,” she told Mr Carlson on Thursday. “The problem is that the warmongers and our supreme leaders in the Biden administration are so clueless, they are so stupid, they are so disconnected with what the American people want, that they are literally going to lead us into World War III.”

The resolution likely has a higher chance of passing now that Republicans have taken control of the majority in the House of Representatives. Ms Greene vocally supported Kevin McCarthy’s bid for the speakership, though her cosponsor Mr Gaetz opposed Mr McCarthy’s bid.

National Security Council Spokesman John Kirby dismissed Ms Greene’s resolution, saying there had been no indication that any of the resources or weapons and capabilities provided to Ukraine had been misused, stolen, sold on the black market or captured by Russia.

“I think we all need to remember that this is a country at war, but so far we have not seen any indication that that has occurred,” Mr Kirby said on Friday. “And we have been supportive of in fact grateful for, for the oversight measures that Congress has, has put in place for accountability of these systems and resources to including to include that the the the establishment of an Inspector General, who is on the job and we fully support that I mean, we we we certainly don’t shrink from that oversight by Congress and and look forward to continuing to work on on accountability.”