Ex-US lawmaker slams Biden for funding Kiev, risking ‘nuclear catastrophe’

Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has blasted US President Joe Biden, the Washington elite and the US military-industrial complex (MIC), blaming them for hiring an army of Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents to crack down on American taxpayers while using their money to fund the MIC and the Ukrainian army with billions of dollars.

“We have politicians from both political parties who are the permanent Washington elite, and who must be held accountable for what they’re doing with our taxpayer dollars and how they’re undermining our national security as they push us closer and closer to the brink of nuclear catastrophe,” Gabbard declared on Friday during a Fox News show, Tucker Carlson Tonight, while filling in for its regular host.

Insisting that Washington should “stop giving a blank check to Ukraine and demand accountability” for the tens of billions of dollars in military aid already provided for Kiev, Gabbard further underlined that much of this huge amount of money has gone to the US military-industrial complex, which has already profited “trillions of dollars” from US-sponsored wars abroad.

“Now the Biden wants to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go over every receipt and every deductible of American taxpayers with a fine tooth comb, squeezing every penny that they can,” she then noted, pointing out that “[For] the Ukrainian government and their corrupt bureaucrats and oligarchs, and the defense contractors who are profiting from all these weapons, the Biden administration requires no receipts at all.”

“Why is this?” Gabbard then asked, adding: “It’s because they know that most of this money -- our taxpayer dollars -- is going to corrupt bureaucrats…Their actions expose who they really care about. It’s not us.”

The politician-turned-commentator and a veteran of the US-led military invasion of Iraq further complained that as Washington continues to commit funds and troops to conflicts abroad, the White House and Congress are failing in their duty to care for America’s war veterans.

“As we speak here we have soldiers who are forced to rely on food stamps to feed their families, soldiers who are living in uninhabitable conditions, and those who are not getting the care that they need for service-related injuries, illnesses and diseases,” the ex-lawmakers from Hawaii emphasized.

The 41-year-old Gabbard served as a congresswoman in the US House of Representatives between 2013 and 2021, and as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) between 2013 and 2016. She quit DNC’s vice chairwomanship to protest the Democratic Party’s presidential primary process, blaming then-DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz for rigging the vote in favor of former Obama secretary of state Hillary Clinton against Vermont’s progressive Senator Bernie Sanders.

She quit the Democratic Party last month, blasting its leadership for being an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.”

Gabbard also served two tours of war in the Middle East, including a tour in Iraq as a member of the Hawaii National Guard, and ran for president in 2020, where her evisceration of former California Attorney General – and current US Vice President -- Kamala Harris by pointing to the latter’s record of incarcerating African Americans on petty drug offenses forced Harris to drop out of the presidential race before any primaries or caucuses were held.

She has long been among the top critics of US military interventions across the globe. She traveled to Syria in 2017 and censured Washington’s attempts at regime change there, and also slammed US military aid for Ukraine, pointing to the risk of the conflict escalating into a Third World War with Russia.

The blistering remarks by the former US legislator also came as the Biden administration has confirmed reports that it had deployed a "small number" of troops to Ukraine to audit huge Western arms deliveries there, further escalating tensions with Russia amid fears over what would happen if a Russian missile or airstrike killed US forces on the ground during an attack on a Ukrainian ammunition depot.

US sends weapons experts to Ukraine amid fears of misuse, diversion

The Biden administration sends weapons experts to Ukraine to inspect US-supplied arms to the country amid rising fears about their misuse and diversion.

Days of endless US funds, military aid for Kiev ‘numbered’: Congressman

Meanwhile, Republican US Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida has also spoken out against Washington’s funding of Ukraine’s war effort against Russia, insisting that the days of endless financial and security aid for Ukraine are numbered following his party’s mid-term elections victory that turns over the control of the House of Representative to the Republicans in January 2023.

"I'm here as a member of the House Armed Services Committee to say that the days of endless cash and military materiel to Ukraine are numbered," Gaetz declared on Thursday, adding: "They're numbered in the days that are required to act on Congresswoman [Marjorie Taylor] Greene’s well thought out resolution of inquiry and they are numbered when we get into the majority."

Vowing not to vote for one more dollar or one more piece of military equipment for Ukraine, the far-right lawmaker further insisted that the United States is far too entangled in the Ukraine conflict and has effectively extended it.

Gaetz also demanded from US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to declassify the Inspector General's report on compliance with the existing regulations regarding the chain of custody of material going to Ukraine.

This is while Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene announced on Thursday that she is introducing legislation alongside other Republican representatives to audit the military funding of the Ukraine war, saying: "We’re asking for everything to do with military, civilian and financial aid. We want it all."

Green further underlined that if the resolution is struck down, she intends to reintroduce the measure in January, after the Republican take control of the lower chamber of the US Congress.

“For next year, absolutely I’ll introduce this resolution again, but I’ll also be calling for a full audit. That’s what we want, we want to audit Ukraine,” she reiterated.

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