The House of Representatives approved a $60.8 billion package of aid for the embattled country of Ukraine Saturday, ending a months-long attempt by Republicans to leverage the Ukraine money to extract concessions on border security from the White House.
The overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, 311 to 112, was never in doubt even as the path to get to the vote was a long and circuitous one beginning in September of last year.
The bill is one in a four-part, $95 billion package, which also includes $26.4 billion in military aid for Israel and $8.1 billion for Taiwan and other Asian allies. Another bill in the package also allows for confiscation of official Russian government assets in the U.S. and requires social media app TikTok to divest its U.S. operations from its Chinese owners or face a ban.
It heads now to the Senate, which passed a very similar package without the Russian asset seizure and Tiktok divestiture language, in February. While opponents of the aid to Ukraine are expected to try to delay passage, the Senate vote in February had 70 backers.
President Joe Biden has signaled he will sign the bill once it clears Congress. That would put an end to a fight Republicans picked in late September, when then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) jettisoned a smaller $6 billion Ukraine aid package from a stopgap spending bill, choosing to tie its passage to the White House and Democrats agreeing to border security changes.
After a few months’ standoff, Republican Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tried to negotiate a bipartisan deal on Ukraine aid and border security — only to see it fall apart. GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump helped sink the bill by posting his disapproval of it on social media, causing Senate Republicans to balk.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/house-passes-aid-for-ukraine-after-delay_n_6622d2a1e4b08151cac9f093?5qi 