(Article by Ilya Tsukanov republished from SputnikNews.com)

Former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has ripped into President Biden, the Washington elite and the US military-industrial complex, accusing the government of wringing Americans dry by hiring an army of Internal Revenue Service agents, while sending billions of dollars to the MIC and unaccountable and corrupt actors in Ukraine.

“We have politicians from both political parties who are the permanent Washington elite, and who must be held accountable for what they’re doing with our taxpayer dollars and how they’re undermining our national security as they push us closer and closer to the brink of nuclear catastrophe,” Gabbard said, filling in for Fox News host Tucker Carlson on a special anniversary edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight this week.

Demanding that Washington “stop giving a blank check to Ukraine and demand accountability” for the tens of billions of dollars already sent, Gabbard stressed that much of this money has gone to the US military-industrial complex, which has already made “trillions of dollars” off of US wars abroad.

“Now the Biden wants to hire 87,000 new IRS agents to go over every receipt and every deductible of American taxpayers with a fine tooth comb, squeezing every penny that they can. [For] the Ukrainian government and their corrupt bureaucrats and oligarchs, and the defense contractors who are profiting from all these weapons, the Biden administration requires no receipts at all. Why is this? Is because they know that most of this money, our taxpayer dollars is going to corrupt bureaucrats…Their actions expose who they really care about. It’s not us,” Gabbard said.

The politician-turned-commentator complained that as Washington continues to ship cash and troops to conflicts abroad, the White House and Congress are failing in their duty to care for America’s veterans.

“As we speak here we have soldiers who are forced to rely on food stamps to feed their families, soldiers who are living in uninhabitable conditions, and those who are not getting the care that they need for service-related injuries, illnesses and diseases,” Gabbard said.

Gabbard, 41, served as a congresswoman in the House of Representatives between 2013 and 2021, and as vice chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee between 2013 and 2016. She quit DNC vice chairwomanship in protest of the primary process, accusing DNC chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schulz of rigging the vote in favor of former Obama secretary of state Hillary Clinton against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.

Gabbard served two tours in the Middle East, including a tour in Iraq, as a member of the Hawaii National Guard, and ran for president in 2020, where her evisceration of former California Attorney General Kamala Harris by pointing to the latter’s record of incarcerating African Americans on petty drug offenses forced Harris to drop out of the race before any primaries or caucuses were held.

Gabbard has long been among the most outspoken politicians in the US when it comes to foreign affairs, travelling to Syria in 2017 and condemning Washington’s attempts at regime change there, and slamming US aid for Ukraine, citing the danger of the conflict escalating into a Third World War with Russia.

After months of media reporting citing fears that US arms sent to Ukraine have been appearing on international weapons black markets, even US allies in Europe have begun to express concern over the matter, citing military-grade armaments falling into the hands of criminal groups. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has confirmed that it has deployed a "small number" of troops to Ukraine to audit Western weapons deliveries, raising tensions with Moscow amid concerns over what would happen if a Russian missile or airstrike killed Americans during an attack on a Ukrainian ammunition depot.

Read more at: SputnikNews.com