On Friday’s broadcast of “CNN This Morning,” Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) stated that the Biden administration should have notified Congress about the $3 billion overvaluation of Ukraine aid when the error was discovered two months ago, we still don’t actually know how big the accounting mistake actually is, and that there is a “systematic” issue with the Pentagon being unable to keep track of spending.
Crow said, “The bad news is, is that the Department of Defense still can’t pass an audit in its entire history, over many decades. It cannot account properly for what it owns, where those things are, and what those things cost. For decades, it’s been unable to do that, because it is a massive, sprawling organization. And as a lawmaker, I’ve been pushing hard to get the DOD in a position to be able to actually pass an audit like any American family has to, like any American business has to. So, that is a systematic thing that remains unchanged and that’s, in part, what happened here.”
Crow also stated that “it’s actually unclear how much more” money is available.
Co-host Kaitlan Collins then asked, “But do you think the Pentagon should have told Congress sooner? Because they say that they found about — they discovered this two months ago.”
Crow responded, “Yeah, it would have been nice to know about this sooner. And I’ve been pushing the administration to actually engage with Congress. And this is more of a White House issue than a Pentagon issue, to engage with us about a supplemental, because we know that funds are going to run out this year. We’ve known that for some time. So, what we need to do is have that conversation now about what’s necessary and what they’re going to come and ask Congress for, and that would have been a good piece of information to have to jump-start that conversation for sure. But, again, that doesn’t mean that they haven’t been very aggressive about providing aid, that we haven’t been doing everything possible, and there’s a difference between the quantity of aid and the type of aid.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.