With federal agencies and foreign aid under the microscope, it’s time someone was appointed to track all the billions the U.S. has spent on Ukraine, Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley says.

“I want to know where Missourians’ money has gone in this conflict in Ukraine,” Hawley told The Heartlander in an exclusive interview Wednesday. “I want to know every dime of it – and anything we commit in any kind of a peace negotiation with Russia and Ukraine.  

“And by the way, I don’t want to spend any more money on this. Zero. We’ve already spent too much. But we need to know where every penny goes, where every weapon has gone to. We need a full accounting.”

The Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve, the name given to war aid for Ukraine, estimated the U.S. had spent $183 billion as of last September. Hawley said the actual figure may now be closer to $200 billion.

Hawley announced Tuesday a bill providing for a financial watchdog “whose *sole responsibility* is auditing every dollar spent on Ukraine – and reporting back to the American people.”

Why can’t that special IG handle such an audit of the Ukraine funds?

“Well, because No. 1, this person is not solely focused on Ukraine,” Hawley explained. “This person also is supposed to be doing investigations into multiple other parts of the Defense Department.  

“Number two, the current watchdog has not been tasked with finding waste or fraud or abuse. And if you look at the reports, you’ll find that they don’t identify any waste or fraud because they weren’t told to go find any waste or fraud. 

“Now, is it possible that of the $200 billion we have spent in Ukraine, a country notoriously controlled by oligarchs, is it possible that there has been zero waste? I guess it’s possible. Is it likely? Not hardly. 

“We need to know where every dime has gone. And currently we don’t have anybody dedicated to tracking every dime. We should.”

The Heartlander asked Hawley if he trusted the president of Ukraine in such matters.

“Zelensky? Not at all. I don’t trust any of these people, just to be honest with you. I don’t trust Putin. I don’t trust Zelensky. What was it President Reagan used to say? Trust but verify? I don’t really trust, but I do want to verify.”

Zelensky says he’s only seen $75 billion – leaving questions as to what might have happened to the other $100 billion-plus.

Easily explained, writes the Center for Strategic & International Studies:

“General Keith Kellogg, the Trump administration’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, denied these interpretations. He noted that ‘we have a pretty good accounting of where it is going’ and that most appropriated funds are spent in the United States.” 

Does that make Hawley feel any better?

“No,” he says quickly and surely. “Listen, all these same people said the same about Afghanistan, as you might remember. The generals in particular, they said, ‘Oh, trust us, things are going great in Afghanistan. It’s great. We don’t need any audits. It’s going great.’ 

“And then we did audit it. And what we found was waste to the tune of billions of dollars, equipment given away to the enemy, wasted training programs that never worked, dollars that were totally unaccounted for, weapon systems that were never delivered. 

“And then all the generals said, ‘Oh gosh, we don’t know how it happened.’ It happened because nobody was paying attention.

“I can’t imagine it’s any different in Ukraine. We need to know. And the idea that members of Congress and the Pentagon don’t want to know is just baffling to me. And yet, they don’t. They cover their eyes, they cover their ears and they say, ‘Oh, we trust it’s all going to a good purpose.’ We shouldn’t trust. We should find out.”

How about having Elon Musk’s young Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) warriors take on spending in Ukraine?

“Well, listen, I’d take anybody over what we’ve got now,” Hawley says. “I mean, right now we effectively have no one. We’ve got a government bureaucrat who is wearing multiple hats and doesn’t even have the authority they need to do a proper audit.

“We need a full-scale, top-to-bottom audit. We need somebody on this with a team of people 24/7, figuring out where every penny has gone to for the last – what’s it been now, three years? We need to find out.”

Hawley has expressed support and excitement for Trump and Musk’s auditing of federal agencies and foreign aid. How much waste or fraud might ultimately be found in Social Security alone?

“Oh gosh,” Hawley says, “I mean, if you just look at the entire government – I see President Trump said recently he thinks that maybe 30% of the federal workforce is redundant, we don’t need all these people. 

“Based on the number of empty buildings I see in Washington, D.C. – I mean, you just drive down, you look at all these huge buildings paid for by taxpayers, how many lights are off, how many offices are dark. Most of them. The vast majority. 

“Now, if people aren’t showing up for work, they must not be needed. They must not be essential. 

“So, I think the cost-cutting, the elimination of excess bureaucracy, all of the waste that President Trump’s administration is exposing, I think it’s fantastic. We need to get rid of all of that stuff, and return that money to the American taxpayer and working families.”

How about that idea? Trump and Musk have indeed teased the notion of a “DOGE dividend” for taxpayers.

“I think that we ought to return the money to the American people, yeah,” Hawley says. “And we can do that in a lot of different ways. One way is to give a tax cut to working parents, which I have long wanted to do. We ought to give every working parent in America a tax cut. If you pay any kind of taxes – payroll taxes are a big one – and you’ve got kids, you ought to get a tax cut. We can for sure use this money to do that. 

“But regardless of how we do it, yes, any money that is saved from the elimination of waste and fraud and abuse ought to go right back to the American taxpayer. It should not be gobbled up by the federal bureaucracy.”