Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin took a break from playing Houdini and made his first public appearance on Tuesday, where he declared, contrary to what the Pentagon has documented, that there’s no evidence of U.S. aid to Ukraine being misused.
“The United States continues to work hard to monitor and account for U.S. security assistance delivered to Ukraine,” Austin said. “We have seen no credible evidence of the misuse or illicit diversion of American equipment provided to Ukraine. What we do see is Ukraine using the capabilities that we've provided to defend itself against Russian aggression.”
Watch below:
In February of last year the Pentagon themselves dismissed concerns about Ukraine aid falling in the wrong hands, claiming that there was “no evidence” of this, but did caution that their investigations are only in the early stages. And they were right to caution that, as Austin’s comments now come fewer than two weeks after a new Pentagon report found that over $1 billion worth of U.S. provided equipment hadn’t been properly tracked, raising obvious concerns about whether they’re being misused. This amounts to an estimated 40,000 weapons.
And this is nothing new either; the Pentagon previously found back in 2022 that the Biden administration left behind $7 billion of weapons in Afghanistan following the 2021 withdrawal, leaving them in the Taliban’s hands.
Matt Palumbo is the author of Fact-Checking the Fact-Checkers: How the Left Hijacked and Weaponized the Fact-Checking Industry and The Man Behind the Curtain: Inside the Secret Network of George Soros
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