USAID Archives - Dr. Rich Swier

Last week, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered a government agency called the Inter-American Foundation (IAF) with an annual budget of $61 million that operates in Latin America in a similar way to USAID but separately.

On Tuesday, it was announced that all grants to the agency had been canceled and all but one IAF employee had been laid off (they can’t all be fired because closing the agency entirely would be beyond the executive branch’s authority, since the agency was created by an act of Congress).

Examples of cancelled grants:

$904,811 for raising alpacas in Peru,
$364,500 to prevent social discrimination against recyclers in Bolivia,
$813,210 for vegetable gardens in El Salvador,
$323,633 to encourage cultural understanding of Venezuelan immigrants in Brazil,
$731,105 to improve sales of mushrooms and peas in Guatemala,
$677,342 to expand fruit and jam sales in Honduras,
$483,345 to improve production of fine table salt in Ecuador, and
$39,250 to beekeepers in Brazil.

DOGE also claims that they found thousands of cases where more than $300 million in loans were granted to children.

It was revealed today that last year, 45% of IAF spending was on salaries and administrative costs for the agency, with only 55% going to grants.

Other examples of canceled grants have been released:

$523,000 for avocado marketing in Honduras,
$770,550 for cocoa farming in Peru,
$1,509,200 for seed banks in Haiti and the Caribbean, and more.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has canceled seven grants for animal sex-change therapy trials, including $532,000 for testosterone injections into female rats and $33,000 for female hormones injections into male mice.

President Trump mentioned this finding in his address to Congress last week.

U.S. Department of Government Efficiency:

Weekly Credit Card Update! Pilot program with 16 agencies to audit unused/unneeded credit cards. After 3 weeks, >200,000 cards have been de-activated. Great progress this past week by @HHSGov @Interior.

As a reminder, at the start of the audit, there were ~4.6M active cards/accounts, so still more work to do.

EDITORS NOTE: This Newsrael News Desk column is republished with permission. ©All righs reserved.

USAID Workers Fired as Elon Musk Looks for Progress Reports

February 25, 2025/in Budget and Finance, Communism, Courts & Law, Economy, Elections, Hot Topics, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

A federal judge’s ruling has allowed President Donald Trump to continue his purge of a major government agency, firing thousands and placing thousands more on leave. As of Monday morning, nearly all U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees have been placed on “administrative leave” and at least 1,600 have been informed that they are going to be fired.

A notice on the USAID website reads, “As of 11:59 p.m. EST on Sunday, February 23, 2025, all USAID direct hire personnel, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership and/or specially designated programs, will be placed on administrative leave globally.” The notice continues, “Concurrently, USAID is beginning to implement a Reduction-in-Force that will affect approximately 1,600 USAID personnel with duty stations in the United States.”

The Trump administration has been attempting to gut USAID for weeks, initially placing employees on leave for trying to skirt presidential directives, and quickly moving to firing almost the entire agency workforce. In response to a lawsuit filed by federal workers’ unions, U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols issued a temporary restraining order (TRO) halting the mass firings. Nichols, who was appointed to the federal judiciary by Trump himself in 2019, explained at the time that issuing a TRO did not mean he would ultimately agree with the unions filing the lawsuit.

On Friday, Nichols removed the TRO, rather than extending it. He explained that the unions “have not demonstrated that further preliminary injunctive relief is warranted.” Nichols wrote, “Upon scrutiny, the employment-related injuries that plaintiffs assert here are not irreparable ones warranting the ‘extraordinary remedy’ of a preliminary injunction.” Although USAID employees — particularly those stationed abroad — claimed that they would be barred from accessing agency systems necessary to their safety, Nichols found upon reviewing the evidence that this claim was unsubstantiated. He said that evidence provided by the Trump administration had “convinced the Court that plaintiffs’ initial assertions of harm were overstated.” The judge concluded, upon detailed review of testimony and documents submitted to him, that USAID employees’ concerns would be best addressed by review boards established by Congress to resolve labor and personnel disputes within the federal government.

The mass firing of USAID employees comes as Trump advisor Elon Musk, who developed the idea for the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has demanded that federal employees submit reports on their productivity or face termination. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Musk announced that “all federal employees will shortly receive an email requesting to understand what they got done last week.” He added, “Failure to respond will be taken as a resignation.” According to CBS News, federal employees have been given until Monday night to respond to the email, sent by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), with five bullet points listing accomplished tasks, excluding classified information.

Democrats have responded to the required productivity reports with vitriol. Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) called on federal employees to ignore the email. “This is a good opportunity for mass civil disobedience. Musk has no authority to do this,” Casten wrote on X. He continued, “Encourage all federal employees to report to work, prepare GFY letters and continue to demonstrate the public service and patriotism he lacks.” The acronym “GFY” stands for “go f*** yourself.” Senator Tina Smith (D-Minn.) also launched a vulgarity-laced tirade against Musk, replying to the productivity report directive by saying, “This is the ultimate d**k boss move from Musk — except he isn’t even the boss, he’s just a d**k.” Musk noted that the “bar is very low here,” observing that an email with five bullet points “take less than 5 mins to write.”

However, even some Trump administration officials have directed federal employees to ignore the email from Musk and OPM. According to The New York Times, federal employees at the FBI and the U.S. Departments of State, Defense, Health and Human Services, and Homeland Security have been instructed not to respond to the email. In most cases, the order to ignore or disregard the email was issued by a senior official in the corresponding agency, but both National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and FBI Director Kash Patel ordered employees under their supervision not to respond. Spokespersons for numerous federal agencies publicly stated that the heads of those agencies are responsible for reviewing and evaluating the work of employees.

Gabbard told intelligence community officers not to reply to the email due to “the inherently sensitive and classified nature of our work…” Patel likewise told FBI employees to “pause any responses” to the email, further explaining, “The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures.” Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the Defense Department’s Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness, said in a public statement, “The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reported over the weekend, though, that he will see to it that even senior military commanders are fired if they refuse to follow orders or implement the president’s agenda. He said that former president Joe Biden “gave lawful orders. A lot of them are really bad. And it’s unfortunate how they eroded our military.” Hegseth continued, “President Trump has given another set of lawful orders. And they will be followed. If they’re not followed — and all these orders are in keeping with the Constitution and norms inside the military — if they’re not followed, then those officers will find the door.”

AUTHOR

S.A. McCarthy

S.A. McCarthy serves as a news writer at The Washington Stand.

The Washington Stand is Family Research Council’s outlet for news and commentary from a biblical worldview. The Washington Stand is based in Washington, D.C. and is published by FRC, whose mission is to advance faith, family, and freedom in public policy and the culture from a biblical worldview. We invite you to stand with us by partnering with FRC.

10 Bills That Would Codify Trump’s Executive Orders into Law

February 15, 2025/in Abortion, Elections, Featured, Gun Rights, Hot Topics, Immigration, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Promoted Video, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Family Research Council

President Donald Trump wasted no time enacting the agenda that won him the White House in the 2024 election, signing a series of executive orders and regulatory actions nearly every day of his second administration. Yet executive orders last only as long as a friendly president holds office. There is now a movement afoot to codify President Trump’s executive orders into statutory law. Here are 10 bills members of Congress have introduced to make the 47th president’s executive actions permanent.

1. Jamie Reed Protecting Our Kids from Child Abuse Act

Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) re-introduced his Jamie Reed Protecting Our Kids from Child Abuse Act. The legislation would cut off federal funding to any medical institution or university affiliated with an institution that carries out transgender procedures on minors. It would also create a private right of action, allowing those who underwent such procedures to sue medical practitioners who administered them, as well as pediatric gender clinics and the hospitals/universities associated with them.

“Our children should no longer suffer from irreversible and dangerous child mutilation procedures, which the Biden administration enabled and promoted,” said Hawley. “I welcome President Trump’s strong action to reverse this child abuse and look forward to working with his administration to advance legislation that protects our kids.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Protecting Children from Chemical and Surgical Mutilation”

2. No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2025

Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act of 2025 (H.R. 7). The bill would bar the U.S. government from funding abortion directly, underwriting abortion through federally funded health care insurance plans (including Obamacare) and carrying out abortions at VA hospitals.

“Abortion violence must be replaced with compassion and empathy for women and for defenseless unborn baby girls and boys,” Smith, co-chair of the Congressional Pro-Life Caucus, told The Washington Stand.

“No matter which party holds power in Washington, Americans should never be forced to fund the violence of abortion with their tax dollars,” Marilyn Musgrave, vice president of Government Affairs at Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told TWS. “Despite Americans’ strong support of this policy, pro-abortion members of Congress attack the Hyde Amendment in every spending bill. The No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion and Abortion Insurance Full Disclosure Act would finally apply Hyde principles permanently across the whole federal government, including stopping abortion subsidies in Obamacare.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment”

3. FACE Act Repeal Act

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) reintroduced the FACE Act Repeal Act (H.R.5577) last month. The Supreme Court ruled in 2022 that activist justices wrongly invented a “constitutional right” to abortion in Roe v. Wade, yet the Biden-Harris administration continued Democratic presidents’ decades-long practices of weaponizing the 1994 Federal Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act against pro-life advocates until the day he left office. Roy’s bill would purge this now-irrelevant bill from the federal register for good.

“We should make this a permanent change so that no future president has to pardon, as President Trump did … individuals who were unfairly politically targeted and charged under the Department of Justice,” Roy told his former colleague, Jody Hice, the regular Friday host of “Washington Watch,” on the day of the 2025 March for Life.

“Americans just spent the last four years being targeted by a weaponized justice system. The FACE Act was one of the primary weapons of abuse — being used to politically target, arrest, and jail pro-life Americans for speaking out and standing up for life” he said in a statement emailed to TWS upon reintroducing the bill.

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Ending The Weaponization Of The Federal Government,” “Enforcing the Hyde Amendment,” and “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias”

4. No Taxpayer Funding for the United Nations Population Fund Act

Congressman Chip Roy (R-Texas) reintroduced the No Taxpayer Funding for the United Nations Population Fund Act (H.R.436) last month.

“The United Nations Population Fund is a globalist, Orwellian, propaganda machine that shills for the Chinese Communist Party its brutal mandatory abortion practices. President Trump was absolutely right to end taxpayer funding to this corrupt and anti-life organization during his first term and I look forward to him doing so again,” Roy told TWS. “At the same time, Congress has a duty under our constitutionally vested powers to ensure that U.S. tax dollars — regardless of which administration is in the White House — can never flow to this dystopian propaganda machine under any future administration. That’s why we need to put this bill on the president’s desk right away.”

For years, UNFPA worked closely with the Chinese Communist Party’s population police, which brutally enforced the nation’s One Child policy.

“The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has worked hand-in-glove with the abortion industry to promote unlimited abortion in other countries,” said Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life. “Taxpayer dollars should never be going toward the Left’s anti-life, anti-family agenda,” agreed Terry Schilling of the American Principles Project. “We encourage all Republicans to support this effort and do whatever it takes to make it law.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: When President Trump signed three pro-life executive orders on January 25, the White House noted Trump “[c]ut all funding to the United Nations Population Fund, which supports coercive abortion and forced sterilization” in his first administration. This bill would help return global abortion policy to the pre-Biden status quo.

5. WHO is Accountable Act

Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) has introduced the WHO is Accountable Act (H.R. 600). The bill would prohibit the use of funds to seek membership in the World Health Organization or to provide assessed or voluntary contributions to the World Health Organization unless the administration certifies:

WHO no longer covers up the Chinese Communist Party’s role in the COVID-19 pandemic and does not persist under the CCP’s control.
WHO increases transparency and accountability to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse.
WHO adopts meaningful reforms to end the politicization of humanitarian assistance.
WHO grants observer status to Taiwan.
No funds are diverted to such human rights abusers as North Korea and Iran.

“President Trump was right to pull the United States out of the CCP-controlled World Health Organization,” said Arrington. “Now, Congress must take action to ensure future presidents can’t foolishly rejoin this corrupt organization without major reforms. I have long said that I will fight against any attempt to surrender our sovereignty and cede regulatory power over the United States through a treaty, agreement, or arrangement. The World Health Organization aided and abetted China in covering up their incompetence with COVID-19, all while spending American tax dollars promulgating woke and radical ideology. This is why I’m proud to lead my colleagues in ensuring President Trump’s America First agenda endures.”

“The WHO is a globalist, CCP run entity that disproportionally charges the U.S. compared to other countries and pushes their CCP and progressive ideology on the American people and the world,” said Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.), who co-sponsored the legislation. “This ends now.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization”

6. No Taxpayer Funding for the World Health Organization Act

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced the No Taxpayer Funding for the World Health Organization Act (H.R.401). The bill states that “The United States may not provide any assessed or voluntary contributions to the World Health Organization.”

“The World Health Organization (WHO) doesn’t serve our interests and doesn’t deserve our money. During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic this body ran interference for the Chinese Communist Party — arguably helping that regime make the entire outbreak worse,” Roy told TWS.

President Trump withdrew from WHO in 2018, only to see Joe Biden rejoin the global governance body on his first day in office. Last month, President Trump withdrew again.

WHO, which regularly repeated CCP propaganda about COVID-19 at face value, attempted to foist a WHO Pandemic Agreement on the world which would limit national sovereignty, claim ownership of 20% of all U.S. vaccines and medications, implement a “One Health” philosophy equating human well-being with animal and plant life, and embolden social media companies to suppress alleged “misinformation.” Family Research Council warned the controversial accord creates “a web of freedom-strangling entities, legal regulatory mandates, and relationships” that could be “switched on to function as a ‘turnkey totalitarian state.’”

“Taking money from hardworking families struggling with the aftermath of Biden’s inflation crisis to send it to a bunch of leftist ‘health experts’ and bureaucrats in Geneva is unacceptable. I have full confidence that President Trump will cut the WHO’s funding off — as he did last time — but this legislation will ensure that no future administration can restart it,” Roy told TWS. “Let’s get this done.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Withdrawing The United States From The World Health Organization”

7. R.1123: “To abolish the United States Agency for International Development, and for other purposes”

Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) introduced a bill “To abolish the United States Agency for International Development, and for other purposes” (H.R.1123). Investigators at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) uncovered billions of dollars in wasteful and often-offensive grants made by USAID, a body intended to supply foreign aid to the world’s most vulnerable populations, including funding of transgender propaganda around the world.

“As chairwoman of the DOGE Subcommittee,” which held its first hearing on Wednesday, “I’ve launched the War on Waste, and USAID is a major culprit lighting over $40 billion on fire each year. It’s time to do what DOGE does best: cut the waste,” said Greene.

“I am pleased that the rot and corruption is finally getting the attention and action it deserves from the Trump administration, but Congress needs to back this effort up and end this problem permanently,” said Roy. “With $36 trillion in debt, we have to get our fiscal House in order; but we can start right now with getting rid of USAID.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Reevaluating And Realigning United States Foreign Aid,” as well as numerous executive actions, such as a mass firing reducing USAID from more than 10,000 employees to just 294.

8. Dismantle DEI Act

Senator Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) and Rep. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) introduced the Dismantle DEI Act. The bill terminates all DEI-based programs, offices, trainings, and grants — including identity-based quotas and anything rooted in critical race theory (CRT) — and does not allow the government to rename or repurpose them. Significantly, the legislation extends beyond government entities themselves to include federal contractors and accreditation bodies. It also creates a private right of action for individuals to sue offenders.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs have plagued our federal government, academic institutions, and other aspects of our society, cheapening standards while disregarding merit,” said Schmitt in a written statement emailed to TWS. “Moreover, taxpayer dollars should not be wasted on this poisonous, divisive ideology.”

“The DEI agenda has no place in our federal government,” agreed Peter Holland of the Foundation for Government Accountability.

“DEI was never about fairness or opportunity — it was a Trojan horse for left-wing political social engineering that fosters division, not unity,” noted Cloud. “Hiring and promotion should be because of someone’s merit, excellence, and hard work, regardless of race, religion, or creed.”

“I’m grateful to President Trump for reversing these harmful policies on day one of his administration,” Cloud told TWS. “His leadership put an end to these divisive, un-American programs, and it’s now Congress’s job to follow through and codify the permanent elimination of DEI from our government.”

Should it reach the president’s desk, it should face little opposition. The Dismantle DEI Act’s Senate sponsor in the last Congress was then-Senator J.D. Vance.

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Ending Radical And Wasteful Government DEI Programs and Preferences,” “Ending Illegal Discrimination and Restoring Merit-Based Opportunity,” as well as a memo from the Office of Personnel Management firing DEI officials and closing DEI programs.

9. R.899: “To terminate the Department of Education”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) reintroduced a bill “To terminate the Department of Education” (H.R.899).

Conservatives have proposed eliminating the U.S. Department of Education since its founding under President Jimmy Carter, which was widely seen as a kickback to teachers unions for dependably supporting Democratic candidates. President Ronald Reagan campaigned on eliminating the agency and repeated his desire to shutter the Education and Energy departments during a televised address on September 24, 1981. “Education is the principal responsibility of local school systems, teachers, parents, citizen boards, and State governments. By eliminating the Department of Education less than two years after it was created, we can not only reduce the budget but ensure that local needs and preferences, rather than the wishes of Washington, determine the education of our children,” said President Reagan.

“Unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. should not be in charge of our children’s intellectual and moral development,” agreed Massie, who supports a strict constructionist reading of the U.S. Constitution. “Parents have the right to choose the most appropriate educational opportunity for their children, including home school, public school, or private school.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: As of this writing, President Trump has not yet signed a much-anticipated executive order closing the Department of Education. (Experts question whether a Cabinet-level position established by legislation can be abolished by executive order.) However, he has repeatedly stated his hopes of closing the department.

10. H. Res. 9: “Resolution reaffirming that the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court”

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) reintroduced his “resolution reaffirming that the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute and does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court” (H. Res. 9). President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute, creating the ICC, shortly before leaving office on New Year’s Eve 2000 but never submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification, as required by the Constitution. Article 125 of the Rome Statute states that it is “subject to ratification, acceptance, or approval by signatory” nations. In 2002, President George W. Bush said the U.S. had no intention to join the body.

The ICC created international controversy last November when it issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant for committing war crimes against Palestinians, including starvation and the intentional targeting of civilians. On February 6, President Trump sanctioned the ICC via executive order.

The latest resolution, which does not have legally binding authority, expresses the sense of Congress that the U.S. “does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.” It also formally condemns the ICC’s arrest warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant, and it proclaims America’s “unwavering support for the State of Israel and its right to defend itself and its leaders from unwarranted international legal actions.”

Executive order(s) it builds on: “Imposing Sanctions on the International Criminal Court”

AUTHOR

Ben Johnson

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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Nazi Collaborator George Soros Received $260 MILLION from USAID

February 7, 2025/in Anti-Semitism, Elections, Gun Rights, Hot Topics, Marxism, Must Read, National Security, News, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Geller Report

We paid the Nazi collaborator to destroy us. No wonder why the Democrats would rather blow up the country than let us see what they have done to us.

Pitchforks and torches.

WATCH: USAID Funded Soros Operations!

Before it was shuttered, USAID routed funds to Soros-aligned causes, terrorists and drag queens

The development agency for years also funneled money to several nonprofit groups that also received substantial backing from components of George Soros’ empire.

By Steven Richards, Just The News, February 5, 2025 10:50pm

Before the Trump administration closed USAID’s doors, the agency regularly routed funding to causes aligned with George Soros’ nonprofit empire, terrorists and drag queens.

The agency came under scrutiny from the new administration over failures to ensure transparency in its funding to organizations across the globe and concerns that the leadership was not responding to explicit policy directives from the State Department and the wider executive branch to align its programs with Trump policies and the U.S. national interest.

In recent days, the Trump administration identified USAID programs ranging from contraceptives for Afghanistan to LGBT diversity programs for European countries as clear evidence that foreign aid needed to be paused and reevaluated, a task that fell to the Rubio State Department.

The development agency for years also funneled money to several nonprofit groups that also received substantial backing from components of George Soros’ empire. Some previously came under scrutiny during the Obama administration for “democracy promotion” and judicial reform efforts in European countries that critics claimed promoted leftist politics.

For example, U.S. government spending records show that the East-West Management Institute, which is in part backed by Soros’ Open Society Foundations, received more than $260 million over the years in grants from USAID to, among other things, promote the rule of law in Georgia, strengthen civil society in Uganda, and advance Serbia’s accession talks with the European Union.

That same nonprofit group came under scrutiny during the Obama administration after Judicial Watch uncovered government records and communications showing that the East-West Management Institute’s “Justice for All” campaign in Albania received $9 million in funding from USAID.

The assistance concerned several GOP Senators, who sent a letter to the newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in 2017, alleging the campaign funded by the U.S. government helped craft an Albanian judicial reform proposal that may “give the Prime Minister and left-of-center government full control over the judiciary.”

Those same Senators also raised concerns about a similar Soros-backed program in neighboring Macedonia where they said a local affiliate called Foundation Open Society-Macedonia received backing from USAID through the Open Society Foundations and pushed “a progressive agenda.”

Other Soros-backed organizations that received funding from both his Open Society Foundations network and USAID include the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine and Transparency International.

According to the group’s own records, the Anti-Corruption Action Center began receiving funding from USAID the same year the Maidan Revolution overthrew Ukraine’s elected, Russian-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych. The group, by its own admission, was heavily critical of Yanukovych’s government and ministers, which aligned with U.S. State Department policy at the time. During the 2014 Maidan Revolution, then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland visited Ukraine and was recorded on a leaked phone call discussing how the United States could influence the formation of a new government in Kyiv.

George Soros’ Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment.

After temporarily shutting down USAID operation, the Trump administration defended the move, citing other left-wing causes that received funding grants from the agency. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted several when speaking with reporters on Monday, including $1.5 million for diversity measures in Serbia, $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru, and $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland.

House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., also flagged other examples of USAID funding, including $15 million for condoms sent to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and over $3 million for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean.”

The government watchdog overseeing the agency also warned USAID’s leadership in a stinging January memo that it had created serious “vulnerabilities” by doling out billions of tax dollars to overseas countries and groups without fulling vetting for terrorists. That inspector general’s report also determined that USAID grants were being insufficiently monitored.

Continue reading.

AUTHOR

Pamela Geller

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Elon Musk’s Claim Linking USAID To Bioweapons Isn’t As Far-Fetched As The Deep State Wants You To Think

February 5, 2025/in Chinese influence, Commentary, Elections, Gun Rights, Healthcare, Hot Topics, Immigration, Must Read, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Promoted Video, Social Issues, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by The Daily Caller

As Elon Musk moves to shutter the U.S. Agency for International Development, the agency’s support for the discovery of novel viruses in collaboration with the Wuhan Institute of Virology has come under an intense new spotlight.

“Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people?” Musk asked in a Sunday night post on X. The post has garnered 38 million views.

Did you know that USAID, using YOUR tax dollars, funded bioweapon research, including COVID-19, that killed millions of people? https://t.co/YVwyKA7ifs

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025

The claim has touched off a renewed debate about whether U.S.-sponsored research contributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and has amplified a long simmering argument among scientists about the difference between “biodefense” and “bioweapons” research. Musk’s claim was immediately decried by some experts as harmful to national security but endorsed by others.

Musk’s vendetta against USAID has been met with resistance from congressional Democrats, who raise questions about how this affects U.S. soft power and whether the law allows for its elimination without legislative action.

But Musk has leveraged USAID-sponsored research in Wuhan as evidence of the need for drastic action.

Mind-blowing 🤯 https://t.co/Vv7PnkaFYz

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 3, 2025

USAID’s Adventures In Wuhan

The USAID Emerging Pandemic Threat Program directed at least $210 million to a decade-long government program called “PREDICT,” in which scientists sampled for novel viruses and monitored the risk for epidemics in Bangladesh, China, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Egypt, Jordan, Cote D’Ivoire, Liberia and the Republic of Congo.

The project is the “single largest health security effort ever funded by the U.S.,” according to the University of California-Davis.

The program directed millions to organizations at the center of concerns about a possible lab accident in Wuhan, namely EcoHealth Alliance and its subcontracted lab, the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

No definite link has been drawn between the USAID-underwritten PREDICT project and the COVID-19 pandemic, which might involve proving that USAID funded the discovery of the progenitor virus that sparked the pandemic.

However, it is clear that PREDICT collected viruses of the same species as SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and that the sequences of some of the viruses collected by PREDICT have never been published.

PREDICT funded the discovery of at least 52 novel SARS-related coronaviruses, including one of the closest known relatives to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. That virus, RaTG13, shares 96 percent of its genome with SARS-CoV-2, and was discovered at an abandoned mineshaft in Moijiang, China, where the U.S.-China team frequently collected samples.

EcoHealth Alliance President Peter Daszak said that certain sequences of samples taken in China and Southeast Asia should be withheld from a public database because it could bring “unwelcome attention” to PREDICT partners like USAID.

“It’s extremely important we don’t have these sequences as part of our PREDICT release to Genbank at this point,” Daszak wrote on April 28, 2020, soon after his collaboration with the Wuhan lab first came under scrutiny by the first Trump administration. “Having them as part of PREDICT will being [sic] very unwelcome attention to UC Davis, PREDICT and USAID.”

According to a congressional investigation, years of viral samples stored at the Wuhan Institute of Virology may have never had their sequences published.

The password protected portal for PREDICT data has been taken offline, though a more public-facing website remains online.

Thousands of viral samples were left by PREDICT in Wuhan Institute of Virology freezers, including 6,380 bat samples.

The scientist charged with overseeing these viral samples was identified as Ben Hu. Hu was named in a report citing anonymous sources as the COVID-19 pandemic’s “Patient Zero.” Hu rejected the claim. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence stated in a congressionally mandated declassified report in June 2023 that several Wuhan lab scientists became ill in the fall of 2019, and that they showed some symptoms “consistent with but not diagnostic of COVID-19.” The wife of a Wuhan lab researcher working on coronaviruses died of what appeared to be COVID-19 in December 2019, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported in 2021.

It’s clear that the Wuhan lab lacked staff properly trained to perform research at a maximum-security lab, according to a State Department cable released in 2021. According to public scientific papers, the lab allowed for novel coronavirus experimentation to occur at a BSL-2 level, which offers few protections against airborne viruses like COVID-19. ODNI acknowledged in its 2023 declassified report that the lab suffered from “aging equipment, a need for additional disinfectant equipment, and improvements to ventilation systems.”

USAID’s American contractors on the PREDICT project have been criticized for issues with biosafety, too.

On Jan. 17, 2025, the Department of Health and Human Services stripped EcoHealth and Daszak of federal grants and barred them from receiving government funding for five years after concluding the group had not adequately overseen its research in Wuhan. Requests from funders at the National Institutes of Health for EcoHealth to obtain lab notebooks and sequences underwritten by U.S. government agencies were not met. According to the HHS investigation, Daszak did not treat these concerns seriously until facing the prospect of debarment.

Meanwhile, Metabiota’s role in responding to an Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014 was criticized by Doctors Without Borders and privately by the World Health Organization due to a lack of appropriate sanitization and personal protective equipment, as well as misdiagnosed cases and inaccurate predictions about the pandemic’s trajectory. That same year, the U.S. granted millions to Metabiota, including for lab work in Ukraine. Former President Joe Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s firm invested $500,000 that same year. In 2022, Moscow authorities exploited this information in propaganda to justify Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

In 2019, USAID and the State Department also supported an expansion of EcoHealth called the Global Virome Project, which included a China-led Virome Project involving work with several institutions with ties to the Chinese military, including Beijing Genomics Institute or BGI, which has seen five of its affiliate companies blacklisted by the Commerce Department.

What if I told you…. pic.twitter.com/lWOYc0ql3O

— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) February 4, 2025

A State Department cable heartily endorsing the project acknowledged the considerable national security risks, including uncertainty over whether Chinese partners would be transparent with data sharing.

American institutions were told by USAID and the State Department that if China undertook novel virus research without U.S. participation, it could pose a national security risk, according to a “draft pitch” from May 20, 2019, outlining the project. Chinese officials were told the same.

“Limited access to the information gained through these efforts may have serious national security implications,” it reads. A comment on the draft states that “an equivalent statement will be inserted into the China doc” – the pitch translated and sent to Chinese institutions.

Approximately $270,969 from USAID’s Emerging Pandemic Threats Division laid the groundwork for the project before it had formally received a government grant, possibly running afoul of ethics laws.

The Global Virome Project website was scrubbed from the internet sometime in the last eight days. The last time the WayBack Machine captured the webpage, on Jan. 26, the site remained up.

Sometime after the emergence of COVID-19, U.S. government support for the Global Virome Project dried up.

Yet USAID allocated another $124 million to a project with different contractors but the same goal: Prospecting for novel viruses in the wild and testing which pose the greatest risks to humans in the lab. The project, called DEEP VZN, was shuttered in 2023 after concerns were raised by the White House National Security Council and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Biodefense vs. Bioweapons

In addition to Musk’s claims about potential connections between USAID and COVID-19, his claim that USAID “funded bioweapon research” also stoked controversy.

virologists over on BlueSkyIsFalling are freaking out because i said it was naive to assume the US doesn’t do bioweapons reaserch….

— Michael Eisen (@mbeisen) February 3, 2025

The distinction between offensive bioweapons work and defense biosciences comes down to intent, experts told the DCNF.

The USAID PREDICT program’s stated mission was to “strengthen global capacity for detection of viruses with pandemic potential that can move between animals and people.”

“I do not think anything USAID has been doing would constitute a BWC violation – not even close,” said Jamie Yassif, vice president on global biological policy at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, in an interview with the DCNF. “It’s important to draw a clear distinction between well intended efforts around naturally emerging and national occurring disease risk and bioweapons work, and conflating the two runs counter to U.S. national security interest.”

Yet even experts critical of Musk’s claim acknowledge that the Biological Weapons Convention, the 1972 treaty that prohibits biological weapons, makes no technical distinction between altering a novel virus for the purposes of creating an offensive weapon and altering a virus for the purposes of creating vaccines and therapeutics.

In order to test which viruses sampled in nature have the potential to drive pandemics, researchers sometimes employ gain-of-function research — experiments that make viruses more deadly or transmissible.

This may make research on viruses with unknown properties “dual use” — capable of serving civilian research purposes or being misapplied for military aims.

“Initially, I thought that investigating the Earth’s virome is a good idea – kind of like searching for new species of animals,” said Laura Kahn, a physician and expert in pandemic policy, in an email to DCNF. “Where it went wrong is when the virologists got the idea to manipulate the viruses to see how to make them deadlier or more contagious.”

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the “defense” premise behind discovering novel viruses and engineering them in the lab was criticized as far-fetched by some experts.

The failure of the USAID PREDICT project to live up to its ostensible premise — to predict and prevent pandemics — has led some scientists to characterize it as bioweapons work by another name.

“The research had no — zero — civilian applications. The results did not help predict pandemics, prevent pandemics, or respond to pandemics,” Richard Ebright, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rutgers University, said in an email to DCNF. “The sole applications of the research were discovery of new bioweapons agents and characterization of new bioweapons agents.”

Ebright and other scientists say the benefits of gain-of-function research remain theoretical. Even a virologist who led the charge for gain-of-function research struggled to come up with an example of a civilian benefit of enhancing a pathogen when pressed by a reporter.

While strongly rejecting the claim that USAID funded bioweapon work, Yassif said that more transparency could be helpful in avoiding a viral “arms race.”

“It is in the U.S. national security interest and in the interest of global security more broadly to have greater transparency,” she said. “It could reduce the risk of misconceptions that might otherwise lead to arms race dynamics that could be destabilizing.”

AUTHOR

Emily Kopp

Contributor.

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A Very Short List, and a Very Long Question

September 12, 2024/in Budget and Finance, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, National Security, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Socialism, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

I was wondering, not exactly idly, where American foreign aid now is sent, and found online a list of the ten countries that receive the most aid from Washington. Here is that list.

In 2023, the United States spent nearly $61 billion on foreign aid. Fully half of that budget has gone to just ten countries:

Ukraine ($16.4 billion)
Israel ($3.3 billion)
Ethiopia ($1.95 billion)
Jordan ($1.65 billion)
Egypt ($1.43 billion)
Afghanistan ($1.19 billion)
Somalia ($1.13 billion)
Yemen ($1.05 billion)
Congo ($987 million)
Syria ($896 million)

Now I have no objection to aid for Ukraine, as it fights to push Putin’s troops out of the country. This unusually large sum — $16.4 billion, and much more so far in 2024 — far outstrips the amounts for the other recipients of aid. This aid only started to be given in 2020, after Russia invaded Ukraine, and it will not continue at anything like that level once that Ukraine-Russia war is over.

As for #2 on the list, I certainly do not object to the sums given to Israel, which for the fourth time in its young life is having to fight for its very existence (the previous wars were in 1948, 1967, and 1973) as it faces a seven-front war, with Hamas in Gaza, with Hezbollah in Lebanon, with the Houthis in Lebanon, with Assad’s army in Syria, with assorted terrorist groups — Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — in Judea and Samaria, with the Shi’a militia, Kata’ib Hezbollah, in Iraq, and looming behind them all, pulling the strings of these various proxies, the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nor do I begrudge Ethiopia its aid, for that Christian country has endured several years of severe drought and internal conflict, including the war involving the Ethiopian central government and the northernmost region of Tigray. Ethiopia has once again become engaged in violent internal conflict, this time involving militia groups from the regions of Amhara and Oromia. And Ethiopia has long had a close relationship with the United States for many decades, beginning under the reign of Haile Selassie. The amount we provide is to help the government restore peace; as with the aid given to Ukraine, it isn’t intended to be a long-term commitment.

But. beyond that, I wonder. Of the seven remaining countries on the list of the top ten recipients, all but one are Muslim countries. Why are we transferring wealth to Muslim countries when the Arab states of the Gulf have trillions of dollars in their sovereign funds? Why do we not insist that the rich Arabs should be helping their brethren, instead of assuming that we should support Muslim states that, precisely because they are Muslim, cannot possibly be our friends (as the Qur’an directs them not to be; see suras 3:28 and 5:51)? Saudi Arabia has more than $1 trillion in its sovereign wealth fund. The UAE has even more: $1.7 trillion. In the first half of 2024 the sovereign wealth funds of five Gulf Arab states — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, and Bahrain — invested $39 billion. Surely they can spare $8 billion to provide to other Arab states, which is roughly the total the United States now gives to the seven Muslim states on the list above.

For reasons that deserve to be pondered, Anwar Sadat got the American aid ball rolling for Egypt with his “prince-of-peace” impersonation. And that money has continued ever since, despite the litany of human rights abuses in that country. Egypt need not be continuously bribed to keep the peace with Israel. What keeps the peace between Israel and Egypt is the IDF. If Egypt needs money, the Gulf states, whose monarchs share El-Sisi’s fear and hatred of the Muslim Brotherhood, should be happy to help.

Jordan, similarly, need not be given large sums by the Americans. The Hashemite king need only hold out his hand in Eleemosynary Position #1, and the Emirates and Saudis will be glad to help out a fellow monarch, especially one who doesn’t want to be overthrown by the two-thirds of his population that is Palestinian. That would be a dangerous example for the monarchs in the Gulf. King Abdullah, like the Saudi Crown Prince and the Emirati rulers, is prepared to repress the Muslim Brotherhood. He, too, needs no American bribe to keep the peace with Israel. The IDF maintains that peace.

AUTHOR

Hugh Fitzgerald

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Biden is Sanctioning Hamas While Funding Hamas

October 29, 2023/in Commentary, Culture War, Elections, Hot Topics, Immigration, News, Policy, Politics, Religion, Social Issues, Taxes, Waste, Fraud and Abuse/by Jihad Watch

Is USAID still operating under a terrorism funding exemption license?

The Biden administration has rolled out some new sanctions on Hamas and other terrorist groups.

“Today’s action underscores the United States’ commitment to dismantling Hamas’s funding networks by deploying our counterterrorism sanctions authorities and working with our global partners to deny Hamas the ability to exploit the international financial system,” Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said in a statement.

“We will not hesitate to take action to further degrade Hamas’s ability to commit horrific terrorist attacks by relentlessly targeting its financial activities and streams of funding,” he added.

Among the individuals targeted includes Khaled Qaddoumi, described as Hamas’s liaison to the Iranian government, as well as a number of Iranian military members who trained Hamas militants.

Also sanctioned was the Al-Ansar Charity Association, which the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said funds the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a Hamas-affiliated militant group.

The Biden administration and Democrats have been reluctant to sanction the IRGC, these sanctions target some IRGC figures. And while this is good, Biden announced $100 million in aid to Gaza going through USAID. which, according to a statement by Samantha Power, will work with “our trusted UN, International Committee of the Red Cross, and Red Crescent partners are ready to distribute to those in need.”

The Red Crescent locally has a history of terror ties. There’s nothing trusted about it. Or the UN.

Rep. James and the House Oversight Committee are asking some tough questions.

In a letter to USAID administrator Samantha Power, Republicans on the oversight panel led by chair James Comer (R-Ky.) requested that by Nov. 7 the agency provide materials showing how it has assessed the risks that aid could be diverted.

“It is vital to fully account for U.S. funds intended for humanitarian purposes to ensure they do not directly or indirectly fund terrorism,” the GOP lawmakers wrote in the letter, which was first obtained by Axios.

Among the documents requested are any reports since 2020 detailing aid that was or could be diverted by terrorist groups and the assessments of a USAID body that oversees risk management.

That is crucial because, documents have revealed that the State Department knew already that it’s high risk.

In 2021, State Department officials warned that “there is a high risk Hamas could potentially derive indirect, unintentional benefit from U.S. assistance to Gaza” and asked for a special exemption from sanctions on funding terrorists.

In 2022, Biden met with Palestinian Authority terror leader Mahmoud Abbas and boasted that, “I reversed the policies of my predecessor and resumed aid to the Palestinians — more than a half a billion dollars in 2021.”

Samantha Power and USAID aren’t denying that Hamas can benefit, only offering a toothless warning.

“We have been clear that any interference by Hamas will jeopardize the continuation of that life-saving assistance,” a USAID spokesperson told Axios.

Note the language carefully. Not ‘cut off’, “jeopardize”. What does jeopardize mean? Absolutely nothing. Biden has made it clear that Gaza aid is a priority. It’s not going to be cut off. Samantha Power offers no meaningful and clear consequences for cutting off the aid. And you can’t sanction Hamas and fund Hamas at the same time.

The real tell will be the information that Rep. Comer is searching for and the question of whether USAID to Gaza is still operating under a special terrorist funding exemption license.

If it is, that’s an admission that we’re still funding Hamas.

AUTHOR

DANIEL GREENFIELD

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Eight Billion Reasons to Like Trump’s Agenda

February 8, 2018/in Commentary, Culture War, Policy, Politics, Taxes/by Family Research Council

Anyone wondering what Donald Trump would do to fill the pro-life promises of his campaign didn’t have to wait long to find out! In his first weekday on the job, the new White House started turning the page on eight deadly years of the Obama administration. After two terms of shipping American dollars to overseas groups like International Planned Parenthood, this president wasted no time pulling the plug, flipping the script on the pro-life Mexico City policy that Obama suspended.In a policy dating back to every Republican administration since Ronald Reagan’s, Donald Trump continued the tradition of blocking even a single U.S. cent from going to foreign groups that perform or promote abortion in other countries. But the administration wasn’t done. To the cheers of pro-lifers, this White House took a giant leap forward from even Presidents Bush and Reagan. For the first time ever, the administration didn’t just bring $600 million in taxpayer funding under the authority of the pro-life rule, but $8.8 billion from the Departments of State, Health and Human Services, and Defense. That’s almost 15 times more money flowing through the abortion ban than President Bush’s policy!

Liberals were apoplectic. The U.S. is ending its global health outreach, they cried! People are going to die without America’s help. As usual, it was fake news. President Trump didn’t zero out international aid — he expanded it. For once, hurting, sick people don’t have to compete with the abortion lobby to get real care. Dollars that would have been spent propping up the culture of death are finally going to projects that improve lives – not take them. But don’t take our word for it. Take the State Department’s.

A year into the Left’s sky-is-falling predictions, this new approach to foreign aid is working. And well. In a report just released by Secretary Rex Tillerson’s agency, the Protecting Life in Global Health Assistance is having the desired effect. Not only is it helping to tear down the financial stronghold that groups like Planned Parenthood have on other nations, but it’s sending a message to the world that America recognizes that all human beings have inherent worth and dignity. If President Trump wanted to discourage international abortion, liberals say he has. A former member of USAID’s population fund, lamented the “huge, huge chilling effect” the White House’s policy is having on abortion activism. “I would say, yeah, unfortunately, it does work.”

If there’s one thing both sides can support, it’s that the Trump administration has managed all of this without any disruption to our aid — one of the Left’s biggest (and unfounded) complaints. Liberals were sure that organizations all around the world would end their partnership with the U.S. government if they had to abide by the new pro-life rules. Hardly. Out of the 733 groups that provide foreign aid, only four refused to comply – including (not so surprisingly) abortion giants Planned Parenthood and Marie Stopes International. So far, they’re the only ones more interested in destroying humans than helping the ones in need.

Meanwhile, if anyone’s opinion matters, isn’t it the people we’re trying to serve? After two terms of hitting other countries over the head with abortion propaganda, a lot of nations are relieved by the change. From the Philippians to Latin America, our neighbors have cheered the move. Carmel Nisha Pius Franco, director of a pro-life organization in India, pointed out:

“Indian women need life, dignity, education and empowerment, not abortion. We have been exploited through decades-long population control propaganda which has resulted in at least 300 million abortions (16 million abortions being performed in India in just one year) and dangerous sub-replacement fertility rate. Americans do not want their hands in the blood of innocent children killed in India. Yes, we need to deal with development issues, but not by killing our children. Thanks to President Trump for setting things right …”

The message from this White House is simple: promoting health means protecting life. And years from now, who knows how many children will be alive to prove us right?

Tony Perkins’ Washington Update is written with the aid of FRC senior writers.

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