House Oversight Republicans want the Biden administration to account for the billions of dollars Congress has sent to Ukraine amid growing questions about whether the aid should continue at current levels.
House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer and other members of his panel said in a letter to the Biden administration on Wednesday that his committee is seeking a detailed record of where funding has gone so far and what safeguards the administration has put in place to prevent wasteful spending.
COMER WANTS ANSWERS FROM FORMER UN OFFICIAL ON HUNTER BIDEN’S CHINESE DEALINGS
“As the United States continues to filter assistance through multilateral organizations with pressure to spend funds quickly, we must ensure proper protections are in place to prevent the misuse of funds,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, which was addressed to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Samantha Power.
The letter comes as House Republicans debate the future of assistance to Ukraine at the one-year mark of Russia’s invasion.
Once nearly unanimously popular, the prospect of continuing unlimited aid to Ukraine has drawn skeptics among congressional Republicans.
Some have said no new money should flow to Ukraine until Congress gets a sense of how the $113 billion in assistance Ukraine has received so far has been spent.
Oversight Committee members asked the Biden administration to provide documents about how much unspent money remains in the pipeline, what conditions were placed on assistance to the Ukrainian government, and any communications about economic programs the United States has funded for the Ukrainian government, among other requests.
The lawmakers set a deadline of March 8 for the Biden administration to respond.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The Ukrainian government had struggled with corruption for years before the war with Russia, creating concerns among some experts and lawmakers that not every U.S. dollar would reach its intended destination.
Adding to the concerns, some of the financial assistance to Ukraine has been routed through other entities, such as the World Bank, which could add an extra layer of bureaucracy to a process that has already proven difficult for the U.S. government to track.
