The issue is whether Congress can suppress any investigation into the actual extent of corruption in Kiev. To that end, the House Armed Services Committee brought in Under Secretary of Defense Colin Kahl to testify: “I’ve worked the Ukraine issue now for about nine years, and in our engagement over that entire period, corruption was the number one issue we’ve raised with Ukrainian officials. We don’t see any evidence of diversion [of weapons] in our reporting. We think the Ukrainians are using properly what they’ve been given.”
Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch also testified before the committee, acknowledging Ukraine’s “long history of issues with corruption.” He did not deny a claim by Committee member Rep. Matt Gaetz, that in the case of Ukraine, the U.S. government was not fully complying with a legal requirement to monitor the use of U.S.-made weapons sent to foreign nations. That would seem to explain Kahl’s curious formulation: “We don’t see any evidence of diversion in our reporting.”
Kahl went on to assure the committee that U.S. officials would “continue to foot stomp the importance of accountability and transparency” in Kiev.
Matt Gaetz made the obvious point about the outbreak in the last six weeks of firings and dismissals in Kiev: “A lot of the zeal for enforcement of the anti-corruption efforts seems to align with the Republican control of the House of Representatives in our country.”
