Kentucky’s U.S. Sen. Rand Paul was among three senators who missed Tuesday’s vote on the $95 billion foreign aid package providing weapons and equipment to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

Two days later and his office won’t explain why.

The libertarian anti-interventionist was an outspoken critic of the supplemental spending measure throughout the seven-month debate in Congress. He railed against the spending as a “ludicrous” allocation given mounting U.S. debt.

He name-checked home-state colleague Mitch McConnell in his attack on the war funding this winter.

“(McConnell is) completely out of touch with Kentucky Republicans, with conservative Republicans; advocating for all this money to go to Ukraine – We’re not for that, nobody in Kentucky’s for that,” Paul told FOX broadcaster Laura Ingraham in early February.

When asked who would win a Senate race between McConnell and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear if the election were held that day, Paul replied: “Beshear.”

Speculation built that Paul was among those attempting to at least delay the package’s inevitable passage during Tuesday’s Senate session.

And then he failed to show up altogether.

“It’s bizarre that Rand Paul and Tommy Tuberville apparently could not be bothered to vote,” wrote independent journalist Michael Tracey on X.com.

He often weighs in on national political issues, referring to the Kentuckian and another Republican from Alabama.

“Unless there was some sudden medical emergency that physically prevented them from showing up to the chamber, it’s inexcusable.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina also skipped the vote on final passage of the legislation, which easily sailed through the Senate, 79-18.

Inquiries to two separate Paul aides over the past two days from The Herald-Leader elicited no response. It’s unclear if Paul was even in Washington on Tuesday, as he missed all four Senate votes taken that day.

Just last week, Paul urged House Republicans to defeat “this foreign aid monster bill,” but added, “If they don’t, no one should expect easy or quick passage in the Senate.”

But once the Senate reconvened on Tuesday, the steps toward passage moved relatively swiftly.

At 2:15 p.m. that day, the Senate narrowly rejected a motion by Sen. Mike Lee of Utah to table action on the supplemental. By 3:30 p.m., the Senate had agreed to close debate on the issue.

After several hours of debate and one more attempt by Lee to slow down the supplemental, it received its final vote of approval at 9:40 p.m. Tuesday evening.

“Paul also did nothing procedurally to hinder passage of the bill, including offering amendments,” Tracey pointed out.

Another journalist pointed out how unusual it was for Paul to be absent during such a big issue central to his nationalist foreign policy view.

“Delaying votes like this is usually like his version of Coachella,” quipped Ursula Perano of Politico on X.

Paul’s account on X has also been quiet over the past few days until Thursday afternoon when he resurfaced for his first comments since going AWOL.

“The ink isn’t even dry on the $61B foreign aid to Ukraine and big spenders are already planning more,” he quipped, linking to an article quoting an anonymous congressional aid predicting another package in September.

No votes are scheduled in the Senate for the rest of the week.

From January 2011 to April 2024, Paul missed 238 of 4,407 roll call votes, amounting to 5.4% of all votes, according to GovTrack.us.

This is worse than the median absence average of 2.8% missed votes among senators currently serving.

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