WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator JD Vance (R-OH), Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS), and Representative Marjorie Taylor Green (R-GA) sent a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to sound the alarm over the $10 billion defense stock deficit that has resulted from Joe Biden’s Ukraine policy.
According to recent reports, the Biden administration sent $10 billion in weapons to Ukraine without sufficient funds to replenish the stocks. The lawmakers noted administration officials’ previous concerns that the depletion of US weapons stockpiles would compromise military readiness.
The lawmakers wrote: “We write to express concern about recent reports that the Biden administration has “sent $10 billion worth of weapons to Ukraine that it still does not have the money to replace” and is sending even more weapons to Ukraine despite this…
“We worry that the reportedly “furious effort at the White House to find any possible support for Ukraine” is leading the administration to further deplete U.S. weapons stocks, divert funds from critical priorities, compromise military readiness, and impose additional financial burdens on American taxpayers.”
Read the letter here and below. Read more from Breitbart News here.
For Background:
- At the Munich Security Conference in February, Senator Vance said: “The West doesn’t make enough munitions to support an indefinite war. Ukraine doesn’t have enough manpower to support an indefinite war.”
- In a February letter, Senator Vance, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-KY), and Oversight Committee Republicans called on DoD Secretary Lloyd Austin to provide documents and information to understand how the Department intends to mitigate the vulnerabilities of military assistance to Ukraine.
- In January, Senator Vance provided a memo to his Republican colleagues in the House and Senate regarding a recent Department of Defense Inspector General report which found widespread failures in the oversight and tracking of American weapons sent to Ukraine.
- In a December letter to the editor published in The Washington Post, Senators Vance and Tuberville called for an end to Ukraine funding.
- In September, Senator Vance and Congressman Chip Roy (R-TX) led dozens of their colleagues in sending a bicameral letter to the White House rejecting further U.S. funding for the war in Ukraine.
- In a September letter to Jake Sullivan, National Security Advisor to President Biden, Senator Vance, along with Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Matt Gaetz (R-FL), requested clarification on major discrepancies between administration officials’ statements on U.S. funding provided to Ukraine.
- In July, Senator Vance and Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced legislation to require the Department of Defense to use accounting methods that capture the true cost of sending weapons from U.S. stockpiles abroad. This legislation will help prevent further accounting issues at the Department, such as its $6.2 billion “valuation error” of certain military equipment provided to Ukraine.
- In January of last year, Senator Vance and Congressman Dan Bishop (R-NC) sent a bicameral letter to White House Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young requesting an expansion of the congressionally mandated crosscutting report on the amount of security assistance to Ukraine.
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