GOP Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio experienced a case of déjà vu when he reviewed the text of the proposed $95 billion military aid package that includes approximately $60 billion for Ukraine.
On Sunday, the Senate in a procedural vote advanced the legislation forward, with 18 Republicans joining Democrats. A vote of the bill itself is expected by Wednesday, Reuters reported.
Vance warned in a Monday X post, “Buried in the bill’s text is an impeachment time bomb for the next Trump presidency if he tries to stop funding the war in Ukraine.”
“We must vote against this disastrous bill,” he added.
I just sent the below memo to every one of my Republican colleagues in Congress.
Buried in the bill’s text is an impeachment time bomb for the next Trump presidency if he tries to stop funding the war in Ukraine.
We must vote against this disastrous bill. pic.twitter.com/uKqet9s0xd
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) February 12, 2024
He further explained, quoting from an op-ed he wrote, “Whether they meant to, a few Senate Republicans have conspired with Democrats to control how Donald Trump runs foreign affairs in his second term.”
But it gets worse. Whether they meant to, a few Senate Republicans have conspired with Democrats to control how Donald Trump runs foreign affairs in his second term.
Even if he wins, they have created the *exact* predicate that was used for the first impeachment trial. They will… pic.twitter.com/xu4iQCLmS4
— J.D. Vance (@JDVance1) February 12, 2024
Should Republicans vote against this bill?
“Even if he wins, they have created the *exact* predicate that was used for the first impeachment trial. They will try to control Donald Trump, and if they fail, they will impeach him. Slava Ukraini, America be damned,” Vance wrote.
“Slava Ukraini” is a Ukrainian national salute that means, “Glory to Ukraine,” according to The Kyiv Independent.
In a memo Vance said he sent to all Republican members of Congress, he noted the circumstances of Trump’s first impeachment in 2019 while Democrat Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House.
That year he paused funds appropriated by Congress being released from the Department of Defense’s Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative and the State Department’s Foreign Military Financing Program.
However, he ultimately allowed the funds to go through before the end of the fiscal year.
The current military aid bill being considered by the Senate includes $13.7 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance initiative and $1.6 billion through the State Department.
The deadline for both funds is September 2025, in other words nine months into Trump’s presidency.
Vance cited a January story from The Washington Post regarding the aid package, which included a section titled, “Future-proofing Ukraine Against Trump.”
“Not incidentally, a U.S. official said, the hope is that the long-term promise — again assuming congressional buy-in — will also ‘future-proof’ aid for Ukraine against the possibility that former president Donald Trump wins his re-election bid,” the Post said.
In an interview on Steve Bannon’s “War Room” on Monday, Vance described the provision in the legislation as an “insurance policy” that “would effectively make it illegal for [Trump] to discharge his campaign promises” regarding Ukraine.
JD Vance: “These people are all obsessed with being able to tell their globalist friends that they got Ukraine their money.” pic.twitter.com/bnAfJxBVLV
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) February 12, 2024
Trump has stated his goal is to bring the war to a quick conclusion.
Over the weekend at a rally in South Carolina, the former president said, “We got to get that war settled, and I’ll get it settled,” Bloomberg reported.
Further, he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “the greatest salesman in history” and suggested that the United States could be “out hundreds of billions of dollars” if Ukraine made a deal with Russia and “all of a sudden they don’t want to deal with us anymore.”
Vance wrote in his memo if Trump were to withdraw or pause financial support to bring about a peaceful resolution “over the objections of career experts” (think former National Security Council member Alexander Vindman, one of the star witnesses of Trump’s first impeachment), then that “would amount to the same fake violation of the budget law from the first impeachment, under markedly similar facts and circumstances.”
The senator predicted, “Democrats would seize the opportunity to impeach him once again.”
Vance concluded, “The supplemental represents an attempt by the foreign policy blob/deep state to stop President Trump from pursuing his desired policy, and if he does so anyways, to provide grounds to impeach him and undermine his administration. All Republicans should oppose its passage.”
No policy regarding Ukraine should tie Trump’s hands as president.
The House must reject this bill outright.
