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House GOP Leader Gets Brutal Reminder After Blaming Biden for Not Getting Weapons to Ukraine Sooner

House GOP Leader Gets Brutal Reminder After Blaming Biden for Not Getting Weapons to Ukraine Sooner
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Amid Russian President Vladimir Putin's ongoing invasion of Ukraine, Republicans elected officials continue to blame President Joe Biden for the uptick in aggression.

In a tweet this past week, House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy lamented that the United States hadn't sent weapons to Ukraine early enough, and suggested that the U.S. send weapons to Taiwan posthaste to "safeguard their future against China."

But there's a glaring omission in McCarthy's critiques.

Former President Donald Trump's first impeachment inquiry began in 2019, when the House began an investigation into a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. After a Trump reportedly directed an appointee of his at the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to freeze congressionally approved military aid, Trump urged Zelenskyy to open up an investigation into then-candidate Joe Biden and into debunked conspiracies about a Crowdstrike server.

Though Trump insisted there was no "quid pro quo," the conversation implied that for Ukraine to access the aid frozen by OMB, Zelenskyy would have to appoint a prosecutor to open investigations that were politically beneficial to Trump ahead of the 2020 election.

The military aid was withheld for more than two months, and Acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine William Taylor testified that he received "desperate" calls from Ukrainian officials about its status. It wasn't until Politico published an article about the suspicious stall in funding that the aid was finally released.

So when McCarthy—who defended Trump throughout his first impeachment—lamented that weapons didn't get to Ukraine quickly enough, people were quick to remind him part of the reason.






Some thought McCarthy and the American people needed a refresher on what Trump's first impeachment was all about.



How quickly they forget.