[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
MONEY IS POLICY: ASSESSING SHORTCOMINGS IN
THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S FOREIGN ASSIST-
ANCE GRANTS PROCESS
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND
ACCOUNTABILITY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
June 4, 2024
__________
Serial No. 118-109
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/, http://docs.house.gov,
or http://www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-743 PDF WASHINGTON : 2026
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey GREGORY MEEKS, New York, Ranking
JOE WILSON, South Carolina Member
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania BRAD SHERMAN, California
DARRELL ISSA, California GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
ANN WAGNER, Missouri WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
BRIAN MAST, Florida AMI BERA, California
KEN BUCK, Colorado JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee DINA TITUS, Nevada
MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee TED LIEU, California
ANDY BARR, Kentucky SUSAN WILD, Pennsylvania
RONNY JACKSON, Texas DEAN PHILLIPS, Minnesota
YOUNG KIM, California COLIN ALLRED, Texas
MARIA ELVIRA SALAZAR, Florida ANDY KIM, New Jersey
BILL HUIZENGA, Michigan SARA JACOBS, California
AUMUA AMATA COLEMAN RADEWAGEN, KATHY MANNING, North Carolina
American Samoa SHEILA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas Florida
WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio GREG STANTON, Arizona
JIM BAIRD, Indiana MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
MICHAEL WALTZ, Florida JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
THOMAS KEAN, JR., New Jersey JONATHAN JACKSON, Illinois
MICHAEL LAWLER, New York SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
CORY MILLS, Florida JIM COSTA, California
RICH McCORMICK, Georgia JASON CROW, Colorado
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas GABRIEL AMO, Rhode Island
JOHN JAMES, Michigan KWEISI MFUME, Maryland
KEITH SELF, Texas BRAD SCHNEIDER, Illinois
RYAN K. ZINKE, Montana
JAMES C. MOYLAN, Guam
Brendan Shields, Majority Staff Director
Sophia Lafargue, Minority Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability
BRIAN MAST, Florida, Chairman
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JASON CROW, Colorado, Ranking
DARRELL ISSA, California Member
TIM BURCHETT, Tennessee DINA TITUS, Nevada
FRENCH HILL, Arkansas COLIN ALLRED, Texas
MIKE WALTZ, Florida ANDY KIM, New Jersey
CORY MILLS,Florida SHELIA CHERFILUS-McCORMICK,
NATHANIEL MORAN, Texas Florida
MADELEINE DEAN, Pennsylvania
Parker Chapman, Subcommittee Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
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Page
REPRESENTATIVES
Opening Statement of Subcommittee Chairman Brian Mast............ 1
Opening Statement of Subcommittee Ranking Member Jason Crow...... 3
WITNESSES
Statement of James L. Richardson, Former Director of The Office
of Foreign Assistance, U.S. Department of State................ 4
Prepared Statement............................................. 7
Statement of Robert A. Destro, Former Assistant Secretary, Bureau
of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State 11
Prepared Statement............................................. 13
Statement of Tom Malinowski, Former Assistant Secretary, Bureau
of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State 16
Prepared Statement............................................. 18
APPENDIX
Hearing Notice................................................... 48
Hearing Minutes.................................................. 50
Hearing Attendance............................................... 51
Materials for the Record
Materials for the record, submitted by Chairman Brian Mast....... 52
Materials for the record, submitted by Ranking Member Jason Crow. 54
MONEY IS POLICY: ASSESSING SHORTCOMINGS IN THE STATE DEPARTMENT'S
FOREIGN ASSISTANCE GRANTS PROCESS
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Tuesday, June 4, 2024
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:08 a.m., in
room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Brian Mast
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Mast. All right. The Subcommittee on Oversight and
Accountability will come to order.
The purpose of this hearing is to examine the foreign
assistance grant making process at the State Department and
related agencies and I will now recognize myself for an opening
statement as we begin.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE CHAIRMAN BRIAN MAST
I want to recognize, No. 1, just that yesterday marked the
35th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. The Chinese
Communist Party may have held on to power, no doubt, as we can
all see but the spirit of the pro-democracy protesters evident
in Tiananmen Square on June 3d and June 4th of 1989 it does
live on.
Today's hearing is an opportunity for Congress to hold the
State Department accountable for sending American tax dollars
to thousands of foreign groups, hopefully, in support of
American values.
But what we need to see as that's taking place is that
there not be an instance where there's less accountability and
oversight than is used to build a bridge or a road here at
home.
It's also an opportunity to examine what exactly are the
State Department's priorities. Is it rising to the challenge of
taking on foreign superpowers or is it promoting wokeness and
social justice?
When it comes to foreign assistance the U.S. Government
provides more than every other nation combined. Every year the
State Department, DOD, the Commerce Department, Agriculture
Department, the EPA, and many other Federal agencies send tens
of billions of dollars to other countries with very few strings
attached and with basically no discernible strategic benefit
for the United States of America and its citizens, at least
that's the way many of my constituents feel as they take a look
at this on a daily basis.
The half-million-dollar grant promoting atheism in Nepal
would be one example of this. Another example is that the Biden
administration has sent more than $2.8 billion to Afghanistan
since the Taliban took power in August 2021.
A report shows tens of millions of dollars of that money
going directly into the hands of the Taliban. There was a grant
for $20,000 to fund drag shows in Ecuador. Unfortunately, the
examples mentioned are likely only the tip of the iceberg.
As some of our witnesses will explain there is a culture of
rot within the State Department that has perverted how American
tax dollars are being spent.
We're seeing grants being structured to promote avowedly
left wing agendas and then when the money is approved there's
little monitoring or evaluation of how these grants are
implemented.
Let's examine some of the examples that I gave. Take the
$500,000 grant promoting atheism in Nepal which was, to say the
least, denied for hours in this very room until we actually
held up the document showing that this was in fact factual.
This committee sent more than 10 requests for information
about this grant to the State Department over a 1-year period.
We didn't get any answers until staff from this committee
were able to track down irrefutable proof when they were on a
staff delegation to Nepal the State Department was in fact
funding atheism in Nepal. In many places they're building--
working to help build useless piers in places like Gaza.
If that wasn't bad enough the implementing partners are now
admitting that that initial $500,000 was approved without the
establishment clause concerns even being raised.
The State Department doesn't want us to know how many of
the instances like this have occurred and it appears to me they
don't know themselves. We need to know why the State Department
is allowing grant beneficiaries to craft their own monitoring
and evaluation criteria for how this money is spent.
We need to know why the State Department is often unable to
assess the actual impact of a grant. They can tell us that a
grant went to an NGO tasked with distributing humanitarian aid
in the form of wheat, yet they can't tell us if the wheat got
into the hands of the civilians that actually need it.
The State Department's preferred evaluation is an impact
assessment but they are not required and are seldom used. We
need to know why that is the case.
Finally, the hardworking American taxpayers who fund these
grants, who go to work every day, have money taken out of their
pocket and have it sent to other countries, they should be able
to easily understand what is the benefit being derived for the
United States of America with their dollars.
And with certain humanitarian aid the people in the State
Department and/or USAID they don't even want to label this aid
as coming from America. This makes you wonder even further how
do the people on the ground know that America has done
something good for them.
Every dollar spent abroad should benefit America's national
security interests, period, without waste, without excuse, and
in a way wholly different from the transparency that we receive
right now.
America is competing for influence all across the globe
with China and Russia and Iran and other enemies. We're
fighting to secure allies and our tax dollars should be going
to benefit America's national security interests.
Yet, we're not seeing that from Joe Biden's State
Department. China's Belt and Road Initiative is building
highways, ports, and bridges.
Meanwhile, our State Department is promoting atheism. This
is a failing strategy and, hopefully, today's hearing and our
witnesses will shed light on what Congress can do to ensure
American tax dollars are not wasted. I look forward to hearing
the testimony and I thank all of our witnesses for being here
today.
The chair now recognizes the ranking member, the gentleman
from Colorado, Mr. Crow, for any opening statement that you may
have.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SUBCOMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER JASON CROW
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman Mast. I want to start by
thanking all of our witnesses for being here and especially
welcoming back our former colleague, Congressman Malinowski, to
the committee to once again share his insights and his
expertise.
I hope that today we can have a good faith conversation
about improvements to the foreign assistance process and about
what robust assistance means for our interests in an era of
renewed great power competition.
This is what I believe this committee should be focused on
and what congressional oversight should be all about. This
hearing is also an opportunity to dispel some of the false
arguments being pushed by those who want to curtail U.S. global
engagement and leadership.
These arguments have crept into the discourse in Washington
and are amplifying talking points used by our adversaries to
delegitimize the work of our diplomats and our development
professionals around the world.
So I want to set the record straight. Our foreign
assistance is not a pot of handouts overseen by deep State
bureaucrats pushing domestic political causes nor is it a slush
fund for writing blank checks to implementers without
oversight.
This is exactly what opponents of U.S. global leadership
want the American people to believe but it is not the truth.
The truth is our foreign assistance programs go through
rigorous process to justify their creation, competitive bidding
to find the best implementers for the job, and have mechanisms
in place to recoup American investment should any kind of
waste, fraud, or abuse occur.
The truth is these programs don't push domestic political
agendas but promote democracy and human rights, counter
corruption, and expose the malign influence of Russia, China,
Iran, and others.
The truth is these programs help us strengthen existing
relationships, build new partnerships, and create environments
that are permissive for U.S. businesses. These efforts are
vital to our national security.
That's not to say some parts of the process can't be
improved, hence, the need for this committee. Sometimes
programs fall short in achieving their objectives and sometimes
mistakes are made.
So I always welcome good faith suggestions from our
witnesses about legitimate gaps that need filling and ways to
make our programming more effective. But what I hope we avoid
is using this hearing as a justification to gut our foreign
assistance and our foreign policy.
Since being elected to Congress advancing the foreign
policy and national security interests of the United States
have been among my top priorities and serving on the House
Intelligence Committee, the House Armed Services Committee, and
the House Foreign Affairs Committee one fact has repeatedly
stood out as self-evident, that we cannot win the competition
with Russia and China if we do not invest in the necessary
tools to defeat them.
That is why I'm deeply concerned about the Republicans'
announced 11 percent cut to our State and foreign operations
budget and hope to discuss what draconian cuts like these would
mean for our ability to use foreign assistance as a tool to
advance our national interests.
To quote former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, quote,
``If you don't fund the State Department fully then I need to
buy more ammunition.''
Thank you again to our witnesses for being here, and I
yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Crow.
Other members of the committee are reminded that opening
statements may be submitted for the record.
We're pleased to have distinguished witnesses before us
today on this important topic. Mr. Richardson is the former
director of the Office of Foreign Assistance at the State
Department.
Prior to this, he served as coordinator of U.S. Agency for
International Development's transportation task force team
where he established new policies and processes within the
agency; Hon. Robert Destro, the former assistant secretary of
State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor during the Trump
administration.
As assistant secretary he led the State Department's
worldwide policy and foreign assistance programs on human
rights and democracy issues such as free and fair elections,
internet freedom, and the growth of the surveillance state; and
last, we have Hon. Tom Malinowski, formerly represented New
Jersey's Seventh congressional District from 2019 to 2023.
Prior to his time in Congress he served as the Assistant
Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor during
the Obama administration.
Thank you for being here today. Your full statements will
be made a part of the record and I'll ask you to keep your
spoken remarks to 5 minutes in order to allow time for members'
questions.
And I now recognize Mr. Richardson for his opening
statement.
STATEMENT OF JAMES L. RICHARDSON
Mr. Richardson. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking
Member, distinguished members of this committee.
I really appreciate the opportunity to discuss U.S. foreign
assistance, specifically grants at the State Department.
Foreign assistance does have the potential to be a force
multiplier for U.S. interest while also positively impacting
the lives of millions of people around the world. When done
correctly our foreign assistance demonstrates the best of
America and enhances our security and economic goals.
But foreign assistance is not charity, as both the chairman
and ranking member have mentioned, and it should never be used
to advance ideological or personal agendas. It should only be
used to advance the core national security interests and goals
of the United States.
As someone who's spent a lot of time here on the Hill, at
USAID, and the State Department working on foreign assistance I
know that this committee has seen that our efforts don't always
meet these expectations.
We have seen grants undermine our closest allies, promote
activities inconsistent with the culture or religion of partner
nations, and fund projects that fail to advance America's core
national security interest.
But the world of grants at the State Department is complex.
Unfortunately, we don't always have clear goals, clear
approaches, or a clear model for success.
Part of the challenge is, honestly, having too much money
in the system. Part of it is an over politicization of foreign
assistance, and still another is that foreign assistance is
just tough. It's hard to do in hard places.
The first step of the process is to clearly articulate
goals and objectives when approaching foreign assistance
grants. As such, our grants should be aligned to the national
security interest of the United States.
Unfortunately, I do fear that the State Department has
taken a far too decentralized approach resulting in fairly
murky goals and a lack of direction. Grants of the State
Department are also too stovepiped with often too little
socialization across the enterprise.
Functional bureaus don't always engage regional bureaus,
embassies, or other agencies doing similar work, specifically
USAID. This can often result in inherently less impactful
programming because I believe deeply that the best ideas have
broad engagement and broad buy-in.
The next step in the grant process is designing the notice
for funding opportunities which provides the roadmap for
achieving objectives. During this process we decide what type
of grantee we want, what metrics will indicate success.
Recently and all too often notices seem to be written to appeal
to specific groups with specific ideological bents.
This can generate outcomes incompatible with good diplomacy
as the values and ideas inherent in these grants can
fundamentally be at odds with the local culture where they are
intended to be implemented. This can alienate our partner
countries, hamper developments, and hinder U.S. strategic goals
in the region.
Furthermore, politicizing foreign assistance, which already
does have low support among the American people, is just
fundamentally unwise.
I would argue that it's important for us to return to a
much more traditional, diplomatic, and development approach
that is focusing our attention on real national security
priorities albeit with new tools and paradigms with sharper
monitoring and evaluation approaches.
This brings me to monitoring, evaluation, and outcomes. Too
often our grants do not seem to meet common sense monitoring
and evaluation standards. For example, grant awardees
essentially write their own monitoring evaluation requirements
including a focus on self-reporting quality versus quantitative
data.
This results in weak performance standards that rarely if
ever include an impact assessment, as the chairman mentioned,
and monitoring in the field is often nonexistent. State
Department officials rarely venture out from the capital city
to see the progress of America's investments.
Part of the challenge is the simple--the amount of funding
in the system and another part is the structural and cultural
issues at the State Department. From the macro perspective, I
fear the problem is even worse.
Requirements are focused on inputs and outputs rather than
outcomes. The State Department is pretty good at tracking
inputs. Most bureaus can tell you whether the grant was used
for the intended purpose.
However, we fail to track whether the U.S. Government is
having the intended impact in the country or sector that we're
trying to reach or whether this type of program that we're
actually funding is the most impactful approach.
To that end, awardees should not write their own monitoring
and evaluation requirements. Instead, I would argue that a team
of professionals in and out of the associated funding office or
bureaus should draft them as part of the development and review
process.
Let me close with this. America is not alone on the foreign
assistance stage. We are competing with nefarious and self-
serving actors including the Chinese Communist Party.
The CCP knows exactly what it's trying to achieve with its
foreign assistance like efforts from capturing strategic ports
to controlling rare earth metals. There's no confusion or lack
of focus on their part.
Our foreign assistance efforts are inherently more noble
than the CCP but we owe it to the system. We owe a better
system to the world and the American people.
Again, I appreciate the committee's efforts to dig into
this process. If we get it right we will not only direct our
resources in a manner that advances America's national security
but also significantly improves our diplomatic efforts and
achieve the best possible outcomes at home and abroad.
Again, thanks so much for this hearing.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Richardson follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Richardson.
I now recognize Mr. Destro for his opening statement.
Microphone, please. That'll help us all.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT A. DESTRO
Mr. Destro. Yes, thank you, sir. Thank you.
Chairman Mast, Ranking Member Crow, and distinguished
members of the committee, thank you for scheduling the hearing
and thank you for inviting us to be here.
I'm going to do in my 5 minutes of remarks something I
learned at the State Department, which is to put the bottom
line up front and that is my specific recommendation today,
because what you all do here is legislate, is the Congress
require all Federal agencies, not just the foreign assistance
programs, to make detailed information about all unclassified
grant awards and subawards, grantees and subgrantees,
implementation and evaluation available online at Grants.gov,
USAspending.gov, and ForeignAssistance.gov as soon as the money
is obligated. Otherwise, you run into the problems that
Representative Crow talked about--you know, the idea of, well,
what's the agenda here.
I'm going to be considerably less charitable than my friend
Jim Richardson because when I got to the State Department one
of the first battles I fought, I mean, literally the first day
I got there was a member of my staff who wanted to go to
another country in the Middle East and visit with all the
grantees and the answer was absolutely not.
You know, and as the new lead naive assistant secretary I
was, like, well, I don't understand, to which the response was,
well, you know, that's very sensitive information.
You know, and my reaction--my initial reaction was, well,
don't I sign the checks, you know, and the answer was, well,
you don't understand--that's very sensitive, to which the
response was to hold up my badge and say, I have higher
security clearance than you do.
And so what we're seeing here, if you take all that foreign
assistance money and all the grants, literally to go from the
top down to the ground level, whether it's in Sudan or Belize
or wherever, you know, we don't know the story of American
foreign assistance programs and unless we see what happens on
the ground.
That was the point that Jim was making. It's, like, yes, we
spent a lot of money. You know, it took me a while to figure
out that at DRL we do a lot of training programs. We spend a
ton of money on training.
You know, the question is what did they learn, and when I
spoke with some folks from North Africa and asked them after
having gone through the training whether or not they had--
whether or not they knew what a whip list was or they knew that
they could go visit their representative down in their home
district they said, wow, we never learned that, to which I
turned to the staff and said, well, what did they learn.
So what we're seeing here, and I think that Representative
Crow kind of accurately captures the problem when he says--and
I don't think it's unreasonable--by writing blank checks to
departments and administrative agencies across the Federal
Government Congress is funding and maintaining a vast counter
State.
It's actively violated the constitutional laws of the
United States by funding censorship programs designed to limit
speech at home and abroad. It attacks religious freedom at home
and abroad and it spreads noxious theories about racial and
cultural identity both at home and abroad.
Those programs--sometimes, not always, in fact, not most of
the time--poison bilateral relations with other countries with
incessant demands and funding for internal political change and
cultural change while failing to notice coup and growing
opposition in friendly countries through its heavy handed and,
I would submit, unconstitutional use of sanctions tools against
both friends, rivals, and American citizens.
The counter State that this Congress is funding and
maintaining is comprised of unelected and unaccountable
bureaucrats who no longer make any pretense of the fact that
they are politically accountable where they actively resist
efforts by Congress and the executive branch to oversee
billions of dollars of Federal grants for both foreign and
domestic programs, ideologically driven NGO's, and
international organizations who receive those billions through
an opaque grants process that puts a premium on spending the
money by the end of the Fiscal Year rather than by measuring
outcomes in the places where they deliver services.
And then, last, a small and shrinking group of large NGO's
at international development consulting firms who are the
partners of choice for the bureaucracy because, unlike NGO's on
the ground in country, they have the capacity to comply with
the mind-numbing requirements of the Federal acquisition
regulations.
And so I'm going to stop here and leave time for questions.
But there's plenty of data I can add. I've got figures for
Haiti, the Sahel, Afghanistan, that will show you we got
precious little for the money we spent.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Destro follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Destro.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Malinowski for 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF TOM MALINOWSKI
Mr. Malinowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Crow. It's great to see you. Great to be back in this room.
Chairman Mast, thank you for leading us off by reminding
everybody that today is the 35th anniversary of the Tiananmen
Square massacre.
It's a day we always have to remember but it also, I think,
helps to ground this conversation in what's important, a
reminder that we are still in a struggle between
authoritarianism and dictatorship in the world and we need to
be giving the State Department the tools to stay in that fight.
As you know, before I came to Congress I was also the
assistant secretary for the DRL bureau--democracy and human
rights. This is the State Department's front line expeditionary
force in supporting people who are struggling for freedom and
democracy around the world.
A couple things about the budget. It's grown quite a bit in
the last few years, not because any president has demanded it
but because Congress has demanded it and the main champions, in
fact, of DRL's budget in Congress, I would say, have been
Republican appropriators in the last few years. It's certainly
been bipartisan.
Another really important fact for you guys is to keep in
mind DRL's grant programs around the world. 85 percent of them
are earmarked by Congress for specific countries and purposes.
This is not a blank check. This is a part of the State
Department that is probably the most directed, the most
overseen by Congress of any part of that department.
I want to make sure everyone has a clear picture of what
these funds do every single day. They support Chinese activists
who have kept the spirit of that June 4th movement alive,
helping them to break through the Chinese Communist Party's
censorship and propaganda efforts and documenting their crimes.
They help to smuggle news and books and TV shows and movies
to North Korea so that the people of that closed communist
dictatorship will know what life is like in democratic
countries.
They help Afghan women stay safe as they fight to get their
rights back. When our military left these programs--these grant
programs remained.
In Iran they help dissidents safely access the global
internet when the clerical regime tries to shut them off. They
help Cubans document human rights abuses by their government
and press for the release of political prisoners.
They've empowered Christians and other religious minorities
in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East fight for their
rights under very difficult circumstances.
Under a program I got started they support anti-corruption
investigators in every part of the world and when we think
about our contests with China and Russia this is incredibly
important.
Every year DRL grantees expose corrupt business deals that
the Chinese government in particular is foisting on countries
in Africa and Asia and Latin America. Very much in our
interest.
Putin and Xi hate these programs. They hate what we do with
this money. That's why they are pushing all of their allies in
the developing world to pass these copycat laws criminalizing
these kinds of partnerships with the United States and other
Western aid agencies.
There are hundreds of thousands of people in the country of
Georgia on the streets the last few weeks protesting that kind
of law. They know what's at stake. So does their Russian-
supported government, and what disturbs me most is that our
adversaries have now turned to influence operations in the
United States to try to discredit what the State Department
does.
Now, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, you know I
don't mince words or dance around sensitive subjects. So I'm
going to align myself with the chairman of this full committee
Mr. McCaul, my friend, who recently said that Russian
propaganda has made its way into the congressional debate about
America's support for our friends and allies in the world.
I will align myself with Senator Mitch McConnell, who I
often don't agree with but who recently warned us not to take
our foreign policy cues from Viktor Orban's Hungary, a country
that he rightly served--said serves as China's doormat to
Europe.
I get why authoritarian governments and American think
tanks that have forged partnerships with those governments
might want us to stop these efforts.
I get why they're smart enough to be using language from
our own culture wars, language about wokeness, to try to turn
us against what our government does to promote freedom and
democracy around the world.
I don't get why any of us would listen. Doesn't mean I
agree with everything the State Department does. If you ask me
to review the thousand or so grants the DRL manages every
single year I'm sure I'd find a couple things I disagree with
or that I'd redirect and, obviously, I believe in strong
congressional oversight.
But the last thing we should do is to gut or politicize
this programming or to disparage the hardworking, nonpartisan
career public service servants who implement it. That would be
doing to ourselves what our adversaries have long tried and
failed to do to us.
Thank you. I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Malinowski follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Malinowski.
Let me just say I do love this panel, and this is not to
diminish you at all, Mr. Richardson, but I love the fact that
we have two individuals having held the same position at
different times from different administrations.
I think it does allow us to get a very good understanding
of some of the work that's done there. So I'm glad to see the
way that this panel was formulated.
Members are going to be recognized for 5 minutes of
questioning and if they want we'll probably go to another round
of questioning if members desire. I'm going to begin by
recognizing myself for 5 minutes.
And, Mr. Malinowski, you used the term earmarks. I also sit
on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. When I
think of an earmark I might not do the design and engineering
of a bridge but we're going to directly identify, hey, we need
a bridge here, a road here, a piece of track here or whatever
it is and we're going to directly identify that.
And I would dare say that if we did foreign assistance in
that way I think most Members of Congress would probably not
want to put their names on a lot of the grants that are going
out or what--as you used them call them earmarks. I don't think
they would want to earmark them with their name on it.
But how do you mean that term earmarks? Because it's not
the same way that we would talk about a transportation earmark.
Mr. Malinowski. It's not exactly the same but basically the
way it works is Congress will say, all right, State Department,
you got hundreds of millions of dollars--we're going to direct
that you spend, say--I'm making this up--$4 million on internet
freedom programs for the people of Iran.
You're not picking the contractor who might implement that
program if it's done that way but you're also not picking the
contractor who's going to build your bridge, right.
You're saying this is the objective--this is what I want
you to try to achieve in this place--and then the State
Department goes out, hopefully, ideally, in consultation with
those Members of Congress who are most interested in that and
they figure out a way to do that.
And then the oversight does not end because if you are the
person in Congress who pushed that earmark you're, I assume,
going to be talking to them regularly about how they're going
about implementing it.
Mr. Mast. So I wouldn't call that an earmark, right? It'd
be like saying, well, Congress approved a hundred million
dollars for roads across America. That doesn't mean that we
said which roads we want to build. We just approved money for
roads. That's not directly saying we need one here, we need one
there.
Mr. Malinowski. No, it's much more specific. It's much more
specific. So----
Mr. Mast. But the members are not putting their names on
the specifics of the ones that they want----
Mr. Malinowski. No. You're passing it. It's in the law.
So----
Mr. Mast. We need members to put their names on the
specifics of these.
Mr. Malinowski. Right. Well, I think the difference is when
I would yield on something----
Mr. Mast. I'm going to go to Mr. Destro. But I thank you
for your analogy. I appreciate it. You gave me some food for
thought.
Mr. Malinowski. It's not for your district. That's the
difference.
Mr. Mast. So, Mr. Destro, I want to go to whether--what I
brought up with some of the examples--drag shows in Ecuador
approved, ultimately not funded because of all of the political
pressure, but moronic to say the least.
The atheism in Nepal, half a million dollars--the money
going to the Taliban, you name it--are these outliers or is
this the tip of the iceberg? Microphone, please.
Mr. Destro. I agree with Congressman Malinowski that the
staff is hardworking, that they're dedicated public servants.
But I can also tell you that the staff in DRL--the policy
staff in DRL versus the funding staff in DRL was extremely
frustrating. They could not get information about where the
money was going in their countries and they were completely
forbidden to talk to the contractors.
And so, I mean, when you look at a country like Lebanon who
had an earthquake in the explosion in the port, you know, I
called their staff together and said, well, what are we doing
in Lebanon where we can kind of get the contractors and get
people over there to help them.
You know, you look at the perception of our programs. I
have spoken to since I left the State Department and during the
time I was there to many people in Nigeria. I've introduced
them to grants.gov.
I've introduced them to USAspending.gov and the response is
this is like the dew that never makes it to the grass. Where's
all that money going; how is it helping us.
And so the perception here--I don't want to undercut the
really good work that's done. The problem is that you have a
State Department, among other things, that is paying to foster
internet censorship, which is exactly the opposite of what we
in DRL were supposed to be doing.
Mr. Mast. So let me ask again. Are the examples I gave the
tip of the iceberg or are they outliers?
Mr. Destro. I think the answer is not clear, and I don't
think--if you--one of the things I mentioned in my written
statement is that in response to staff concerns I asked DRL to
come up--the technical people at State to come up with a real-
time data base of where we were spending our money.
Mr. Mast. All of it?
Mr. Destro. All of it. Yes, all of it, so that all the
other bureaus could get to it. It would tap into the data base.
Mr. Mast. How did it work?
Mr. Destro. And it was built and it was one of my most
progressive and, I think, honorable staff members--I mean, I
loved her opinions on things--said, you know that that data is
pretty inconvenient. It's going to cause an uproar in the
countries if the information gets out.
So that's not--those are not my words. And so the fact of
the matter is, Mr. Mast, we don't know the answer to your
question because the information is opaque and not available.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Destro. Thank you, Mr. Malinowski.
Sorry I didn't get to a question to you, Mr. Richardson.
The chair now recognizes Ranking Member Crow for 5 minutes.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman.
You know, it strikes me that there's two issues going on
here. There's one discussion about whether or not we should be
doing this stuff at all, right--whether this money should be
appropriated for these programs in the first instance, and
that's kind of the larger debate that we're having right now as
we address the Republicans' proposed 11 percent across the
board cut for FSOBS, which would cutoff these programs.
Versus, Mr. Destro, I'm hearing you say the implementation
and oversight of these programs, right, which seems to be the
thrust of this conversation, not necessarily that we shouldn't
be doing these things, that they do have value if they're done
the way they should be done versus making sure they are done
the right way.
So, Mr. Malinowski, I would just, you know, love to hear
your response to Mr. Destro's comments about implementation and
oversight and your experience with that.
Mr. Malinowski. I find it very strange. I signed off on
every grant. I knew exactly what we were doing around the
world. I don't think any of my predecessors--certainly, I did
not--have any trouble understanding what we were doing. There
was trust between leadership and staff.
Talking about transparency and putting the stuff online do
not forget, particularly for the bureau that we both led, most
of the grants are going to help people who are living in
dictatorships.
Mr. Destro mentioned Lebanon. Like, imagine you're giving a
grant to an NGO in Lebanon that is fighting corruption in that
country where the government is heavily influenced by
Hezbollah.
You're telling me you're going to put that on a website so
that Hezbollah can see exactly who in Lebanon is getting a
grant to expose their corruption? Are you crazy?
So if members of his staff were telling him this is
sensitive they were absolutely right. We are helping people who
are risking their freedom and in some cases their lives to
stand up for democracy, freedom, and human rights in their
countries and you're darn right that one of the main missions
of the staff and that bureau and others in the State Department
is to keep our partners safe.
The assistant secretary knows what's going on if he or she
is running the bureau correctly. But that doesn't mean--and
Congress should know if you ask--but we have to keep that in
mind.
Mr. Crow. And, Mr. Destro, do you think that an 11 percent
across the board cut to the FSOBS program would be, in your
view, beneficial? Would that enhance oversight or solve the
problem that you're talking about about implementation and
transparency?
Mr. Destro. Well, you've got a couple of questions there. I
don't think that an 11 percent cut is unreasonable. I mean,
most Americans are taking a much bigger haircut when they go to
the grocery store every day.
You know, so the fact that it's not the amount of money
that we spent. I think Jim Richardson and Tom Malinowski have
both said it's the effect and the outcome that we're looking
for.
You know, and it's not fraud, waste, and abuse we're
talking about. That's the wrong--that's a category error. What
we're talking about is programs that don't advance America's
foreign policy interest and many programs that actually
antagonize the people in the country who get it.
Mr. Crow. And your response to that, Mr. Malinowski?
Mr. Malinowski. Well, they certainly don't antagonize the
people who get it. What I've heard a couple of times from Mr.
Destro is that they may antagonize governments, and I'm
surprised to hear a former assistant secretary for democracy
and human rights suggest that we shouldn't be making democracy
and human rights grants that antagonize governments.
I mean, by definition if you are helping people--and that's
the mission of this bureau and of the State Department, a
mission defined by the U.S. Congress--if you're helping people
advance human rights and democratic reform dictators aren't
going to like that.
Mr. Crow. I guess one thing is I'm struggling with this
notion that the resources and the amount of money doesn't
matter. It's the effect.
But if you're cutting the resources and you're cutting what
you're actually allocating in the projects themselves then the
effect goes away, right?
Mr. Malinowski. Of course, it matters, and it matters at a
time--and I think there's bipartisan recognition of this as we
have heard today--that China in particular and Russia to some
extent spend billions of dollars on influence operations around
the world and our comparative advantage in these countries is
that we, unlike them, are associated by the peoples of these
countries with these values of rule of law, human rights,
democracy.
We work with them. We work with civil society and we should
be doing more of that, not less of that, if we're going to
actually win this competition, if we're going to be serious
about it.
Mr. Crow. I think the point for me here is that you can't
separate the conversation about allocation of resources and
implementation, right. If you get rid of the resources then
implementation doesn't matter because the programs go away,
right.
And I'm all about increasing efficiency, having better
implementation, doing things better all the time. Every
organization can do things better. But if we cut the resources
and the programs go away then the entire conversation goes away
and we can't even have a seat at the table.
I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Crow.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Perry for 5 minutes.
Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thanks for being here. Tom, it's good to see
you. Welcome back.
Mr. Destro, you coordinated for Tibetan issues when you
were working in the last administration. I think Tibet suffers,
as we know, from deteriorating human rights, poor economic
development conditions, restrictions against religious
freedoms, and repression of Tibetan culture as the Communist
Party of China seeks to consume and subsume Tibet.
With that in mind, did the Biden State Department encourage
atheism in Tibet? Is that my understanding. I just want to--do
you know about--what's the story there?
Mr. Destro. It was in Nepal.
Mr. Perry. It was in Nepal. Okay.
Mr. Destro. And I can tell you this.
Mr. Perry. Okay. Okay, go ahead. Go ahead. Tell me.
Mr. Destro. No. No. Please finish your question.
Mr. Perry. Well, what's the interest of the United States
of America in supporting atheism in Nepal? Like, what--how does
that help us? What are we trying to achieve?
Mr. Destro. Well, there's two answers to that question.
One, we don't have any and there's no evidence that atheists
are a persecuted class in Nepal. But even more so, you know,
one of the big issues I had to deal with is talking to Nepal
into not sending people back to China.
I had to intervene with the foreign minister and ask him,
please don't send people back who escape. And you could expect
once this came out where the conversation would be--so why are
you trying to destroy our culture?
You know, so you're asking other countries to do things in
the field of human rights, very valuable things in human
rights, and then you're kind of hitting them in places they
don't expect to get hit.
And it's a false dichotomy that Mr. Malinowski is pointing
out. It's not about--just about governments. It's about how the
people see our government spending and who they're spending it
on.
The people in Nigeria I have been speaking to for years now
and they say, who are these people who get the money? What do
they do with it? And I have suggested that their independent
journalists go out and start knocking on some of the doors to
find out where that money comes from.
Mr. Perry. Yes, I'm actually outraged that we're spending
money whether it's in Tibet or Nepal on atheism abroad. I just
feel like we could better spend our money and we'll talk about
that a little bit more.
Mr. Richardson, it's come to my attention that grant
awardees were being able to write their own monitoring and
evaluation requirements. So they get the grant money--that's my
understanding.
So I want you to confirm this. Maybe I'm wrong. And then
they write their own monitoring and evaluation so they're
watching themselves and how they spend it. Is that--am I
mischaracterizing it?
Mr. Richardson. Yes, that's essentially right. When a
grantee puts forward its proposal it'll have a monitoring/
evaluation section in that. Often what you find is that the
monitoring and evaluation standards seem, I would argue, pretty
weak and so--but it is almost a self-reporting.
The latest guidance that I saw from the State Department
focuses on essentially a qualitative personal experience of
whether that funding helped them or not, and rather than
looking at actual data or doing a true analysis and
monitoring--true monitoring and evaluation, which is what you
would actually want to do, because what you really want to do
is see does that money actually have the impact you're trying
to accomplish rather than does this just make people feel good.
And that seems to be the direction that the State
Department seems to be taking in this new monitoring and
evaluation standards that they've put forward.
Mr. Perry. So it seems to me that we should be--you know,
when the people in the district I represent wake up early in
the morning and head off to work to pay their taxes, can't
afford their groceries, their electricity bill, you know, their
daycare bill, funding things--climate pet projects or, you
know, DEI initiatives, other fabricated issues as I would call
them as opposed to major infrastructure projects, oil and gas
leasing or drilling, mining, real economic development projects
that could be assessed at tangible results and then evaluating
whether these funds have an impact as essentially optional is
astounding to me in the sense that last year, 2023, foreign
assistance, government, State, and USAID combined spent $56
billion--$56 billion--while China is out doing hard things.
They're not doing DEI initiatives. I guarantee you they are
not. And climate issues--they're not doing any of that stuff.
We're spending our taxpayers' money on this stuff and then
we're not even requiring a third-party evaluation on
effectiveness. It's astounding. It's outrageous.
For those who say 11 percent is too much let me tell you
what will tighten up the organization, not having as much to
spread around because they're spreading it around willy nilly
like they don't care because they don't care.
Well, my people, the people that I represent, that are
working hard for their money, they do care, and they don't want
to waste it. I yield the balance.
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett for 5
minutes.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Votes have been called. Are we still good to go?
Mr. Mast. If you would be more comfortable coming back here
after the vote we can hold until then. I can give you your 5
minutes then. Either way.
Mr. Burchett. Okay, there's still time. Progress.
Mr. Malinowski, it's good seeing you, brother. I miss your
receiving abilities on the football field.
Mr. Malinowski. I can still play on the football team, you
know.
Mr. Burchett. Yes, you can. Well, but with all those pros
they don't ever throw to people like me and you anyway. So
anyway----
Mr. Malinowski. I think you caught a couple when----
Mr. Burchett. Well, I'm incredibly gifted. Thank you for
noticing.
Mr. Richardson--I appreciate all you all being here and all
the usual stuff we say. Can you explain how too much money in
foreign aid can be a bad thing?
Mr. Richardson. Yes. No, I appreciate the question. It is,
I would say, two things. One, you always want to look at the
outcomes rather than the inputs, which is the money going into
the system.
Not every program is designed for the same impact. Not
every sector will have the same level of impact that is
directed to the national security interest of the United
States.
When it comes to the pure dollars in what you find is that
we have both grants officers and contracting officers who are
actually doing the hard work of crafting the right grant
agreement or the right contracting agreement or the right
cooperative agreement, and if you have too much money into the
system you're overburdening those contracting officials and so
that results in less quality and less focus.
The other part of this is that as a--from a foreign
assistance perspective you really want to cut out the German
manager or the British NGO that is managing your resources. You
want to put the money as close to the recipient as possible.
It's called localization. That's really hard. You have to
find local actors. So it takes longer and it's more labor
intensive, and you probably can't put as much money into the
system. But you ultimately will have a better impact, at the
end of the day.
So having less money into the system allows you to better
localize resources, better focus your attention on improving
the actual approach that you're taking in order to have that
better focus on impact.
Mr. Burchett. Thank you for that answer. I would remind you
that John's sitting behind me. Apparently you hired him----
Mr. Richardson. I brought John to Washington hired, him in
his first job. It's great to see you.
Mr. Burchett. He's not much to look at but he does a pretty
good job.
Mr. Richardson. He's a good Kansan.
Mr. Burchett. I've had a couple of good ones in that
position. One of them was over there but he's left, too.
What needs to change culturally, I think, at the State
Department, USAID. We hear a lot of talk about that and just
cutting it out for foreign aid to be more effective and I want
to put in there to that how do we keep foreign aid from getting
to our enemies?
I've had State Department people here before and they've
told me that a hundred percent we cannot guarantee that that
money--some of that money is not getting to our enemies.
Mr. Richardson. Yes. Look, the vetting question is really
serious where we actually are vetting both people and
organizations that implement our foreign assistance, making
sure that they are trusted individuals.
We do that on a very limited basis focused on very specific
regions in the world and we do it almost exclusively focused on
terrorism concerns rather than transnational concerns, criminal
enterprises.
I think if we start expanding both what we are looking for
in our vetting and expanding the amount of time and effort we
focus on vetting, expand the number of countries, I think we
can get a lot better and be closer to protecting the
investments the American people are making.
Mr. Burchett. Okay. Let me make sure--no, I'm good.
You got any recommendations--any further recommendations
that we could followup with maybe in legislation or otherwise
to ensure that would happen?
Mr. Richardson. Yes. I think that, you know, we have to
take this stuff--the impact assessment--very seriously. You
know, we have a logic model whenever we do any type of foreign
assistance work that the money that we put into this program
will result in this type of outcome.
But we know--we rarely actually track as to whether that
actually happens and often when we do track whether it happens
it's not true. The great example is greater economic assistance
programs in Central America.
The theory was if we put more money into economic
assistance programs that will keep people from migrating to the
north. Turns out we made them just a little bit less poor,
which allowed them to have better ability to pay for somebody
to go to the north.
So it had the exact opposite. Great logic, terrible
results. That's not the type of programs we should be funding
and I think Congress can really dig in and require that type of
impact that is essential.
Mr. Burchett. We have run out of time. I want to thank you
all. Tom, miss seeing you, brother. But it just kind of reminds
me--my momma was a school teacher and the last 10 years of her
teaching career she taught at a historically black college and
they had a saying, they don't want a handout, just a hand up.
And I think that's something that we should take to heart
because it just seems that we are missing the boat on this
thing and I think we're going to--long-term we're going to hurt
ourselves because people are getting tired of just hearing
about the misuse and the people that are abusing, specifically
United Nations, on things like that.
So thank you all very much.
Mr. Mast. So we're well into a vote series here. As long as
you all can hold on for us we would fully intend to come back
with a few more questions. So we will briefly recess for this
vote. We do appreciate your patience, and the committee will
stand in recess until subject to the call of the chair.
[Recess.]
Mr. Mast. The committee will come to order.
I want to thank you all for waiting patiently for us. We
tried to hold it off until the end of that last vote and then
did the following vote immediately.
So, hopefully, you didn't feel like you had to wait too
long. We're going to now go to my colleague from Florida, Mr.
Mills, for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mills. Thank you so much. Thanks for your time. I
appreciate you guys being here and I appreciate the chairman
for putting this together.
I wanted to go through a couple of just very easy questions
for you. You know, Republicans are putting human rights
defenders' lives at risk is what we're being told and I just
want to talk about how--what a kind of hyperbolic statement
that is when these things are made by our colleagues but also
others.
Certain offices at State like DRL used this argument
intentionally over classified information as a way to shield
their program from congressional scrutiny on accountability.
Can you tell me whether or not you feel that's true that we
are in some way putting human rights' lives at risk?
Mr. Malinowski. I think there was a conversation about
whether we should be--the State Department should be putting on
a website or being much more public about all of the grants
that go out to help human rights defenders in a dictatorship.
Mr. Mills. Transparency, right?
Mr. Malinowski. And I said if we did--in some cases if we
did that it would be putting their lives at risk. I wasn't
accusing anyone of doing that now because we're not doing that
now.
Mr. Mills. But, I mean, Congress is more than capable of
being able to understand certain classified sensitivities.
Mr. Malinowski. Correct.
Mr. Mills. But at the same time in an effort to try--and
this is the oversight and accountability piece--we're supposed
to show transparency and accountability for the American people
and also for the taxpayers on how things are being done.
My chairman here has even in the past shown where on a new
department or bureau that had been established it wouldn't even
say who works for those independent--is that not correct that
we tried to source this multiple times?
How is that in some way not showing transparency,
accountability, or in some ways putting someone at risk of a
classification when you don't even show who's actually part of
that actual independent department or bureau?
Mr. Malinowski. I think we may be talking--do you mean a
bureau of the U.S. government?
Mr. Mills. Yes. I mean, I'll----
Mr. Malinowski. Okay. Well, that's a totally different
issue we have not discussed in this hearing.
Mr. Mast. Would the gentlemen yield for a moment?
Mr. Mills. I yield.
Mr. Mast. It was the climate czar Mr. Kerry that would not
identify the individuals being paid by the taxpayers who are
working in his office.
Mr. Malinowski. And so totally different issue from grants
made to human rights defenders.
Mr. Mills. And so--but do you think that those type--do you
think those types of things, though, should be held or
classified or do you think they should be transparent to the
American people?
Mr. Malinowski. I think those things should be transparent
to Congress.
Mr. Mills. I would absolutely agree.
Mr. Malinowski. There are situations where, again, we're
talking about human rights defenders in Cuba or Lebanon or Iraq
or China. We do have to be careful whether something is
formally classified or not. I'm sure you would agree not to
endanger people who share our values, who take the risk of
being partners with the U.S. Government.
Mr. Mills. But I think you would also agree that making
sure that we find out where these grant fundings are
allocated--so let's just say as an example, and I'm sure that
it's already been beaten a few times on this, but what about
the money that's being allocated to UNRWA?
What about the $343 million that went to them last year
where you had members of UNRWA who were participating in the
October 7th incident or the fact that they've said almost 10
percent of the 13,000 employees actually celebrated the attack
on October 7th?
I mean, Mr. Richardson, in your opinion do you think that
an organization who participates in such things should continue
to receive government funding?
Mr. Richardson. No, of course not. I think the larger issue
is also that we don't provide--we don't require any vetting of
U.S. dollars to go into the U.N. system.
So while we know what happened with UNRWA because of
reporting, we don't actually do our own independent analysis or
security checks of humans that are actually receiving funding.
And so we need to change that, especially with the U.N. system.
Mr. Mills. And this is exactly what the OIG and Sopko
talked about with SIGAR with regards to the independent grants
and how they're being weaponized and being abused. You've watch
where companies like Chemonics International and DAE and
Creative Associates and all these supposed implementing
partners who continue to say that they're doing things to get
advocacy were actually just--actually telling people, hey, we
have to get grants out as fast as possible because if we don't
spend the money we're not going to be able to receive our
second tranche.
That is not what I consider to be fiscally responsible and
especially if you go back to the November 2011 IG report from
SIGAR on the Chemonics Afghan Stabilization Initiative Program
in southern Afghanistan where money was being allocated and in
some cases falling into the hands of Taliban and also those who
are running the poppy and opium fields.
So my point is in all this, and I know this is the point of
the chairman as well, we need to have better oversight
accountability to make sure that this money is not falling into
the hands of the very people that we say that we're trying to
combat against, and I think that the only way we're going to do
that is to have more transparency from departments like the
DRL.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Mr. Mills.
We're going to go to another round of questioning here. I'm
going to recognize myself for 5 minutes.
And as I start out here--maybe there's some agreement or
some good debate between you two--what is the budget that we're
looking at, you know, on average year over year?
What are some of the budgets we're looking at for DRL from
what you all have seen in terms of grants going out the door?
Mr. Destro. Well, the----
Mr. Mast. Not everything coming in for salaries. But when
we're talking about grants going out the door what do you guys
see and if we can agree on some kind of roundabout?
Mr. Destro. Yes. We were looking at a--at least when I was
assistant secretary it was about one and a half billion. I
think it's gone up a bit. The operations budget was about $30,
$40 million.
Mr. Malinowski. Yes, that's not right. It was--so the grant
budget when I was there was a little over $100 million a year.
During the Trump administration Congress increased it. It went
up about four times.
I don't have the exact figure, obviously, but it went up to
I think in the $400 million to $500 million range.
Mr. Mast. How many grants you all think that's getting
divided into?
Mr. Malinowski. It's about, I think, on an annual basis,
roughly, about a thousand. DRL is--one of the cool things about
the bureau in my view is that they're pretty good at doing very
small grants. So, like, USAID can't do anything under, like,
Mega Millions.
One of the best programs that DRL has that has strong
bipartisan support is the ability to get very tiny grants of,
like, $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 out in even less than 48 hours----
Mr. Mast. And of the thousand grants----
Mr. Malinowski [continuing]. To people--let me finish. To
people who need it to stay alive.
Mr. Mast [continuing]. How many subgrants are we talking
about? How many subgrants do you all think--the entity that you
wrote a grant to is now writing another or several other grants
to other entities that you did not actually give a dollar to--
you did not vet?
Mr. Destro. That's pretty hard to say. That was the basis
for my comment about the big organizations like Chemonics and
others that understand the Federal acquisition regulations.
You can't, without doing what Jim said earlier, get down
into the field and give some Nigerian human rights defenders,
you know, a small grant for peacebuilding. I mean, they just
don't know how to account for the money.
So it requires a lot more--you know, these--a lot of that
money gets sucked off in overhead, I would suggest to you.
Mr. Mast. Elaborate on that. When you say sucked off in
overhead let me--I brought up the example numerous times. We
almost had a whole hearing on the atheism in Nepal. But the
numbers are round and so we'll use it as an example--$500,000
to expand atheism in Nepal.
It was denied here for several hours until we ultimately
held it up, and then afterwards the people that were here
denying it for 2 hours called me afterwards and said, oh, crap,
sorry, and we missed half of the slides in the program. By the
way, here they are. The lawyer sent it to us.
But when you look at that $500,000 Nepal's probably daily
wage is what, probably $2 a day on average, something like that
there. So what do you think the $500,000 went to? I know this
is a pure speculation question.
But was it $50,000 toward producing 100 slides to give a
PowerPoint and then the other $450,000 in paying salaries for
people at some NGO sitting in England? Or what is it?
Mr. Destro. Well, this is pure speculation. Jim would
probably know better what the overhead rates are.
Mr. Richardson. I mean, yes. I could talk a little bit
about sort of generically rather than the specific because I
don't know the specific project.
The challenge that we have--and you're exactly right. So
what we end up doing is we'll give a grant to an NGO in London
who will then hire some random German to then fly to Uganda and
set up a program where there will be an office, there'll be an
office space, there'll be this guy's family or this girl's
family and then they'll run a program, which will have slides,
an office, and those types of things.
Once you start getting to the actual implementation of the
program what we often see is a 50 percent overhead rate, and
there's been efforts afoot to try to limit the overhead rate
and it's different between contractors and grantees and what
that actually does is different based upon the type of program,
the sector, the region that you're operating.
But there's a lot of countries that do foreign assistance
that really try to limit overhead to under 10 percent, which I
think is the right metrics and right approach.
Mr. Mast. And would you say what you're outlining is par
for the course whether you're talking about DRL or USAID or
Commerce or take your pick of where the dollars might be coming
from in terms of aid going abroad?
Mr. Richardson. Every agency is different but I do think
that there's general consensus about that is the way most of
the--at least on the foreign assistance side at State and AID
there is a consistency.
As the former Congressman said, I mean, you have--DRL does
sort of micro grants where aid sort of lives in the $1 million
to $5 million range. So there's a little bit of difference in
scale which allows you to have different expectations and
there's--but there's also different levels of programming.
Often you'll see 5-year programs run out of aid or you may
have shorter out of DRL. So it just depends on each one.
Mr. Mast. The chair now recognizes Mr. Crow for 5 minutes.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
You know, we heard today that DRL does somewhere in the
neighborhood of a thousand grants, hundreds of millions of
dollars, but the majority keeps on coming back to this supposed
atheism grant in Nepal, and I just want to make the record
really clear here.
This is a grant that was done through the International
Religious Freedom grant program at DRL and it directly
implements an amendment to the Frank Wolf Act that was
introduced and supported by a Republican member of this
committee who actually supports this program.
The programming grant on the State side followed proper
process and it supported a mission to support religious freedom
broadly. This is about religious freedom broadly in Nepal.
But that includes nonbelief. So just because one element of
this is nonbelief doesn't mean that's the focus of the entire
program. This is about religious freedom in Nepal broadly.
And there was a comment that, you know, there's no evidence
that atheism is under attack in Nepal and I would like to
submit into the record a report--a country update on Nepal from
the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom
from August 2023 that specifically talks about the assaults on
religious freedom including nonbelief in Nepal.
If I may submit this for the record.
Mr. Mast. So ordered.
[The information referred to appears in the Appendix:]
Mr. Crow. So I just think it's really important that we
baseline and we talk about facts here, right, because the
challenge is and when we cherrypick individual instances of
grants, some of which could be done better, right--we talked
about this.
There's always room for improvement. There's always things
that can be done better. But we use those cherrypicked
instances to then broaden out and talk about the grant process
overall. That can be very dangerous.
So, Mr. Malinowski, I'd like to just come back to you about
your experience. You know, what can we do better, right, but
also what do we do well?
Mr. Malinowski. Yes. And just to reinforce your point,
look, the the religious freedom programs are wonderful and that
a hundred percent came from the Republican side of the House
originally is something that the State Department needed to do.
When we're funding an NGO, say, in Iraq that is working
with the Christian minority in that country, helping them,
empowering them to stand up for their rights, we're not
promoting Christianity any more than this grant was promoting
any particular religion. It's promoting people's right to stand
up for their beliefs.
To your point, the broader point--and I think this is
really important--Mr. Richardson at one point rightly said that
it should be our goal to localize, right.
We don't want to be giving all the money to some, you know,
group in London that works through a contractor in Germany
where most of the money is not actually going to help the
people on the ground.
The reason why we sometimes do that is because there's
oversight. We don't want the money to be misspent. We want to
know what's going on.
You guys are pushing us for more oversight or pushing the
State Department and that pushes in the direction of more
bureaucracy, of more people in fancy offices in Western
countries doing more paperwork to make sure we don't have even
a single example of something not going in the right direction.
So there's a balance here. We want more of the money to go
locally. We want some freedom to experiment, right. I mean, any
of us who have led a team in the military, in the State
Department, know it's best to empower--you know, to hire good
people, empower them to go out, be creative, and not have to
ask for permission for everything.
But there's got to be some oversight because, you know, if
you don't have it there will be mistakes.
And so there has to be balance and that means, yes, you got
to hold the State Department accountable if you see something
you don't like.
But understand if they never do anything you don't like
that's probably because there's too much bureaucracy, too much
control from the top, and we're not actually getting the really
good programming that comes from a little bit of freedom and
flexibility. Keep that balance.
Mr. Crow. And in the remaining time, Mr. Malinowski, what
would be the impact, in your view, of an 11 percent across the
board cut to the State and foreign ops program?
Mr. Malinowski. Yes. Well, it's actually not across the
board. I think I looked at what the committee did. One of the
things they did, for example, was eliminate all funding for the
United Nations general budget.
I know the U.N. is a whipping boy around here but, Okay,
you want to end sanctions enforcement on North Korea and Iran
and on ISIS and on al-Qaeda? That's what would happen if we did
that.
There are a lot of things the U.N. does that don't get a
lot of attention because we agree with them. We tend to only
pay attention to the things we don't like.
So massive cuts like that would absolutely undermine the
U.S. national security interest and I sincerely hope we don't
go there.
Mr. Crow. Thank you. I'm out of time.
Mr. Malinowski. The programs we're talking about we should
be spending more, not less.
Mr. Crow. Thank you. I'm out of time and yield back.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Ranking Member Crow.
I know this is not the time for us to continue to fully
hash out Nepal as an issue. We argued it plenty for several
hours here before.
But I would say that if the paper, the document, that State
Department literally puts forward on this grant for Nepal says
expanding atheism.
I would say expanding is promoting and I would further make
the point that the folks on the ground said that atheism was
not one of the marginalized groups. Atheists were not one of
the marginalized groups in Nepal.
This was absolutely an instance--Mr. Malinowski, I think
you used an appropriate word, experimentation. I don't think
the American people want their dollars used for experimenting
on whether atheism should be expanded in some country abroad.
And I appreciate the comments on it. I appreciate the
thought on it. But I entirely disagree regardless of where the
policy came from.
I believe it is now back to Mr. Mills for 5 minutes.
Mr. Mills. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.
Look, I want to talk about this whole grant and
localization thing but I also want to talk about how these
grants has not seen any national security strategic success in
goals.
Let's go back to Afghanistan and Iraq. I spent 7 years in
Iraq, almost 3 years in Afghanistan. I've worked with the State
Department, I've worked with the government. I've worked with
the agencies. I've worked in uniform.
And I've watched the gross abuse of programs like Black &
Veatch's Kandahar Helmand Power Project, the idea of being able
to spend billions and billions of dollars that we're going to
do hydro turbine electricity to Kandahar Helmand and that's
somehow going to work.
Are you aware with what happened with that project, Mr.
Malinowski?
Mr. Malinowski. No, and, again, what we have been focused
on here is we do need to distinguish between big economic
development projects and what----
Mr. Mills. But this isn't--this didn't start out as a big
economic development program. Originally they were saying that
we're going to give small grants to the people that are there
to do construction areas just to try and refurbish what was
existing.
Then that failed. Then it was, Okay, now we need to grow
this a little bit bigger. Okay, now that failed. Now we need to
go ahead and bring in all new equipment. Now that failed. And
then it starts to get to the tunes of billions and billions of
dollars.
And you said something, that USAID doesn't do small grants.
Well, I know for a fact that in Libya you had organizations
like DAI and also Creative Associates and also Chemonics who's
given $1,000 to $5,000 grants. They were giving grants.
Do you want to know what one of those was for? It was to
buy speaker equipment for a local rapper because they thought
that if he made music about governance that that was going to
stabilize the Nation.
Does that seem like that's what American taxpayers want to
see is their money being spent to buy rap equipment for people
in a nation which has nothing to do with stabilization and
never had any actual impact whatsoever?
These are the things that--my point in bringing up these
failed programs is that we have tried the monitoring
evaluation. We contract one company.
We then contract a company like Management Systems
International--MSI--who's supposed to be the M&E gurus and
experts, who then spend even more money and then they can't
even track the money they're spending for M&E while trying to
also track the money that's being done to the implementing
partner.
And then we talk about this grand scheme of we're going to
do localization. Let's talk about localization. The only
difference is instead of the Thursday night debauchery that
goes on by most of the expats that are over there celebrating
drinking on a Thursday night like they did in Iraq,
Afghanistan, all the rest, you then just have them refilling
boots and positions here in D.C. and calling themselves deputy
chiefs of party, chiefs to the party, you know, program
assembly manager, all this.
You're not saving any money by trying to do this
localization route and, in fact, I would argue that we saw
actually a lot more corruption in Iraq as a result of that
whenever we were building bridges that were $750 million and
then all of a sudden come to find out half the bridges when we
investigated hadn't even been built.
My issue is that I don't see where cash diplomacy has been
successful. I don't see where that's stabilized nations.
Where's Iraq right now? Where's Afghanistan right now? Where's
Libya right now?
We spent trillions of dollars in these nations and then we
throw it out when we do things like the 2005 Iraq constitution
under Article 76 that establishes sectarianism, which hasn't
existed since preapartheid eras in North Ireland.
My point is is that we can talk about M&E and all this. I
disagree with your assertion that, you know, the U.N. enforces
all these grand sanctions.
What about the sanctions on Iran right now? How's that
working with regards to ensuring that they don't export more
oil than they've ever done in their history under this
administration?
Is that--do you think they're imposing sanctions? Do you
think they're actually upholding things? No. General Guterres
and Ban Ki-moon under Resolution 2231 knew there was midrange
ballistic missile, you know, violations and, yet, they did
nothing to actually prevent it.
So tell me again how cash diplomacy makes national security
a priority.
Mr. Malinowski. Well, we heard about Iran sanctions, people
getting drunk, and projects in Afghanistan. There's a lot to
respond to.
Mr. Mills. Do you dispute any of those, though? I mean,
I've seen----
Mr. Malinowski. I don't even know how to make sense of what
you just said. But, you know, you asked me. Let me take----
Mr. Mills. Making sense of it is simply this, that the past
formula doesn't work, Mr. Malinowski.
Mr. Malinowski. Let me take a piece of it. You asked--you
asked about----
Mr. Mills. That's what I'm saying.
Mr. Malinowski. You asked about how does helping a rapper
who might be spreading a message about democracy help as well.
You know, I recall that in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970's, and
1980's we helped defeat the Soviet Union in part by supporting
artists and writers and cultural people and radio programmers
and musicians and people who were spreading the culture of
democracy through art in Europe.
You talk to any dissident in Eastern Europe who went
through that and they would say that's one of the most
effective things that we did.
Mr. Mills. Where is Libya now. Are they a failed state?
Mr. Malinowski. What's that?
Mr. Mills. Would you consider Libya a failed state?
Mr. Malinowski. I'm talking about Eastern Europe.
Mr. Mills. I didn't mention Eastern Europe. I mentioned
that specific program just to show that this is not being
effective and I asked how national security has improved.
Mr. Malinowski. Much of the things we try to do are going
to--are not going to be successful.
Mr. Mills. I agree with that.
Mr. Malinowski. When I was at DRL I used to make an
analogy--a baseball analogy to my team. I said that if you're
batting .300 in a world where you're going after--you're going
up against dictators, sociopaths, mass murderers, if you're
successful----
Mr. Mills. Well, at $35.6 trillion in debt I don't think
that we can be batting a .300 for the American people.
Mr. Malinowski. Well, it's better than batting zero.
Mr. Mills. Well, I can tell you right now we are batting
zero.
Mr. Malinowski. If we stop trying you know who's going to
cheer? It's going to be--the Russian government and the Chinese
Communist Party would love us to stop doing this. Why? If you
think it's unsuccessful----
Mr. Mills. But they're already expanding, sir. You're
seeing that Russia, China, Iran, North Korea----
Mr. Malinowski. If you think it's unsuccessful why are all
of our enemies passing laws----
Mr. Mills [continuing]. Geopolitical alignment already
expanding. You watched Belt and Road Initiative expand. You've
watched China continuing to go into developing nations all
across Africa----
Mr. Malinowski. They're fighting.
Mr. Mills [continuing]. And they've been very successful in
this.
Mr. Malinowski. They're fighting.
Mr. Mills. You're watching Wagner Group down in Chad and
CAR who's continued to expand. Now they're in their our own
Western Hemisphere with economic coercion of Honduras and
Panama taking over the canals for treaties, going into Cuba,
and actually helping with the fentanyl pill press in the Darien
Gap.
So we're not winning the war against China or Russia by
going out and doing what you're saying, which is these small
funding grants.
Mr. Malinowski. So why are they passing laws and all of
their allies to try to forbid us from doing these grants?
Mr. Mills. Why are we continuing to go ahead and give money
but not account for where it's going?
Mr. Malinowski. It's your job to account for where----
Mr. Mills. Why are we still giving money to the Taliban by
paying certain electric bills and housing rental bills that we
know falls into the hands of those very people we fought for
20-plus years?
I mean, my point is that I don't believe in what you're
doing is successful. I don't believe in the USAID cash
diplomacy model and I've seen it fail time and time again
firsthand as I sat on these things like RAMP UP North.
And you can continue to do your little eyebrow roll or
whatever you'd like to do right now. But you know for a fact
that if we go and look at the monitoring evaluation books,
SIGAR reports, look at OIG and John Sopko that you can't
dispute the fact that a lot of money was waste, fraud and abuse
at taxpayers' expenses.
Mr. Malinowski. Well, maybe I'll put you down as a maybe.
Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Mast. All right. I have one final round of questions. I
don't know if my colleague has another one. But it's a little
bit more open ended for you all.
Let's just simply say any advices, any ideas, that you all
have to increase transparency for these grants within the State
Department across the board.
Does not have to be DRL where you two spent your time.
Could be in USAID. Could be anywhere. Would love to hear those.
I think it's one of the most important things that we can hear
from all of you.
Mr. Richardson. The one thing that hasn't really been--you
mentioned it briefly in your opening statement but it's
branding. We fail to really brand the gift from the American
people that we are doing great and amazing work all around the
world.
We don't take credit for it. It's often at a little emblem
in the bottom of Chemonics' roadway sign thinking that
Chemonics is the one who delivered that project that impacted
the lives of those people.
No, it was the hard work of the American people paying
their taxes that resulted in that, and if we're not proud about
it then we shouldn't have done it.
And so I think we should we should definitely pass a strong
branding bill and put the American flag on foreign assistance
projects.
Mr. Mast. Agreed.
Please, Mr. Destro? Mr. Malinowski?
Mr. Destro. Well, thank you. I think that there is a danger
for being too narrow in our focus whether or not it's on a
local program like Libya, which is a completely failed State,
you know, where we actually as a human rights matter have
actual slave markets.
You know, but on the other hand you have this focus on the
atheism grant. What I'd like to suggest is that we need to pull
the aperture back a bit and look at both our domestic and our
foreign policy.
We say that we're for religious freedom but we're for
deconstructing of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. You know, the
Ukrainian government is arresting priests and nuns.
You know, it stands--it's funding the Greek Orthodox
newspapers while standing silent while the Ukrainian--the
Organization of Ukrainian Journalists--Orthodox Journalists
nothing's said about them
And so we need to be doing--and I'll just give you another
example. I spend a lot of time on Xinjiang and on the
surveillance State in China.
I went through the Cleveland airport not long ago and was
given the opportunity to have my face scanned. You know, so
this question of what are human rights and what are we doing
both inside and outside the country.
It's not an accident that many countries think we're
hypocrites because we say one thing and then we do things with
our money that we shouldn't be very proud of.
Mr. Mast. Mr. Malinowski, any suggestions that you might
have for transparency within grants? We'd love to hear them.
Mr. Malinowski. So don't get me wrong. I am for
transparency and, you know, I was slightly critical of a
proposal Mr. Destro made to put everything on a website. I'm
actually for putting almost everything on a website. I think it
should be easier for----
Mr. Mast. Can we pause there 1 second? Was it a website or
was it an internal server--an internal list?
Mr. Destro. Right now I'd be satisfied with the internal
server. I mean that, I think--because and two Ambassadors have
told me that they cannot get the information----
Mr. Mast. That you created. That you created.
Mr. Destro. That we created.
Mr. Mast. Was it a public domain website or was it----
Mr. Destro. Right. It was based on what they call the
Secretary's dashboard. Pulls the money--it pulls the
information real time out of the F data base.
Mr. Malinowski. So I think just as an American citizen,
like, it would be--I would love there to be a website where you
can go and see in a more clear, user friendly way what we're
doing in various countries.
If it were very clear it would also point out in many cases
that the money spent is not being sent to that country. We had
that debate over Ukraine aid. A lot of it is spent in the
United States. Some of it is donated as grants to organizations
in that country.
That kind of transparency I'm for with the important caveat
that applies particularly to DRL programs, less so to AID
programs, that when you're working in a dictatorship and there
are people who are risking their lives to do the work--anti-
corruption, anti-torture, pro-human rights--then it's just
common sense and good judgment that we're not going to splash
over--all over a website, you know, Mr. Dictator, here's who
you should arrest because they're working with the United
States. I hope we would all agree with that.
But beyond that, yes, I think the more you guys can push
for that the better for everybody concerned. I'm personally
proud of most of what the State Department is doing. I'd be
happy to see it more transparently presented in that way.
Mr. Mast. Mr. Crow?
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Malinowski, I just wanted to give you the opportunity
to take some time here to respond to some of the back and forth
and issues raised by my colleagues. I know you didn't fully
have the opportunity to respond to that. So I'll give you my
time.
Mr. Malinowski. Well, thank you. Look, I started out where
Mr. Mast started out, by mentioning the Tiananmen Square
anniversary, because I think we should be focused on big stuff
here on what's important and, in a sense, I think we all agree
there is a contest in the world right now between the
democracies led by the United States and dictatorships led
particularly by China, and we have to be spending money in a
variety of ways all over the world if we want to win that
contest.
And I am very concerned when I hear that because of some
Members of Congress being concerned about a particular grant,
which is fine--that's normal.
That's your job even if I may--we may disagree about the
merits of that particular grant. That you have a situation
where right now I'm told about 60 percent of the grant funding
the DRL has is held by members of this committee.
If you disagree with $20,000 that might have indirectly
contributed to a canceled drag show in Ecuador, whatever, we
can argue that. It should not be an argument for holding 60
percent of money that is absolutely critical to people who I
think all of us would agree are fighting for good things like
religious freedom and human rights in countries around the
world who are in effect defending the gospel of liberty,
freedom, and human rights that is associated with America in
opposition to what China and Russia are spreading in the world.
And so absolutely conduct oversight but do it in a serious
and responsible way that protects and enhances the important
things that the State Department is doing in response to
congressional pressure, in most cases, to stand up for our
values and our interest.
That would be my plea to you today. This has been
bipartisan for as long as I have been working on these issues
for over 20 years. That needs to remain.
Mr. Crow. Thank you. And I just also wanted to get your
thoughts on a couple of times the issue of money provided to
folks under assault in Afghanistan falling into the hands of
the Taliban and, you know, we support people fighting for
freedom and democracy and their rights that are under
oppressive regimes pretty regularly, right.
You had mentioned North Korea. You'd mentioned Iran. You'd
mentioned Cuba. Of course, Afghanistan is another example.
Can you just briefly discuss what controls and checks are
in place when we do that to make sure that, you know, that
money is not misappropriated or fall into the wrong hands.
Mr. Malinowski. So, again, really important to distinguish
between the types of things that SIGAR would evaluate.
These are, largely, big infrastructure and development
projects where you've got a lot of local business contractors
and the funding that I'm most familiar with, which is in
Afghanistan going to go to maybe support some journalists who
are still trying to do actual journalism against the Taliban in
the country or a small grant that might help a women's rights
group have an office or pay for a court case or do the things
that they need to do to stay alive.
We have safeguards for all of these projects, even for the
very small ones. There's project evaluation reviews, external
evaluation that goes into a lot of these projects. But for the
most part I'm not so worried about a little women's rights NGO
in Afghanistan.
That grant is not going to end up in the hands of the
Taliban. That is 100 percent in our interest, it's the right
thing to do, and the Taliban hopes and prays we stop doing it.
So keep that in mind.
Mr. Crow. Okay, thank you. Chairman, I yield back.
Mr. Mast. Mr. Mills?
Mr. Mills. We talked about human rights and I want to key
off something. Do you think what's happening in our southern
border with regards to the amount of human and child
trafficking is a human rights tragedy?
Mr. Malinowski. Human trafficking is a horrible human
rights tragedy, yes.
Mr. Mills. Do you think that the open borders are leading
to an increase in human rights violations?
Mr. Malinowski. I do not believe we have open borders on
the southern border, Congressman.
Mr. Mills. You don't believe that the 9.8 million people
who's crossed our borders illegally that that is an increase in
what we have seen in previous administrations?
Mr. Malinowski. I don't think we're going to have the time
to debate our border policy here, Mr. Mills. But no, I do not--
--
Mr. Mills. Mr. Malinowski, we will actually be able to
debate whatever the chairman actually allocates the time on,
correct?
Mr. Malinowski. Okay. That's fine.
Mr. Mills. You've sat in Congress. You know how this works.
Mr. Malinowski. I do.
Mr. Mills. So my point is is that if we're worried about
the human rights violations--and it is atrocious what's
happening.
We know what the cartels and what others are doing with
regards to--almost 40-plus percent of the revenue they took in,
you know, it's $500 million in cartel revenue in 2018. Fast
forward to 2022. We're over $13 billion in cartel revenue.
Mr. Malinowski. Yes. They're gaming our asylum policy.
Mr. Mills. And we're seeing where there's millions upon
millions of people crossing our borders of which many are being
used and thrown into child and sex trafficking and sex slavery,
things like this, which is a pretty atrocious thing I think we
all could agree on.
Wouldn't our money be better allocated focusing on human
rights violations and things like that that directly impacts
our country more so than throwing money to other nations where
we're not going to make--I mean, it's a drop in the bucket.
It's not going to make an impact.
Mr. Malinowski. So No. 1, that's why I wish and still hope
that you guys pass a bipartisan bill that is the toughest----
Mr. Mills. You mean H.R. 2, Secure the Border Act, which
actually was passed over a year ago sitting in the Senate and
the Democrat control?
Mr. Malinowski. The bill that a bipartisan coalition in the
U.S. Senate agreed to that was not passed----
Mr. Mills. But didn't even pass the Senate.
Mr. Malinowski [continuing]. Because the nominee of your
party for president said it won't help him in getting
reelected.
Mr. Mills. Well, but wait a second. Well, let's talk about
border policy now that you brought that up, though. Doesn't the
President have executive order with unilateral authority under
212 Section F to immediately secure the border?
Mr. Malinowski. My understanding is he's going to be
issuing that executive order.
Mr. Mills. Why did he wait until right around the election
period of time as opposed to closing it before 11 million
people come across the border?
Mr. Malinowski. I can't speak for him but I think he
probably would have preferred----
Mr. Mills. Or 70,000 to 100,000 who died of fentanyl
overdose or the criminals who have actually killed people like
Laken Riley or even my own State legislator Kiyan Michael whose
son was killed by an illegal who crossed illegally three times
back into the country.
Mr. Malinowski. My guess is that he hoped Congress would do
its job and when Congress explicitly said, we will not do our
job because Donald Trump is ordering us not to then now the
president is----
Mr. Mills. So there's no Federal--well, wait, Mr.
Malinowski. Isn't there Federal laws already in place to ensure
the security of our borders?
Mr. Malinowski. There are quite a few Federal laws but they
need to be funded.
Mr. Mills. Well, and they are funded. H.R. 2, which
actually passed the House because like you just pointed out the
Senate has supposedly a bipartisan bill, which is an amnesty
bill, that wouldn't even pass its own chamber.
But ours actually passed over a year ago which can make
tangible result and impact. And, yet, the Senate hadn't taken
that up.
Now, that's not a Republican issue or a Democrat issue.
This is an American issue that we need to secure our borders
and need to we'd take care of things.
Mr. Malinowski. That's why Republicans and Democrats need
to work together as they did to produce something that both
sides can support with compromises on both sides.
It would--a lot of Democrats embrace that mostly Republican
bill in the Senate because they understood they have to make
compromises, and the Republican sponsor of that bill, one of
the most conservative Republicans in the U.S. Senate----
Mr. Mills. Well, I would disagree with that.
Mr. Malinowski [continuing]. Said the only reason we are
not doing this is because our nominee from President said it
would hurt him politically to secure the border before the
election and as a result----
Mr. Mills. And then he also came back and actually said
that his bill--and this was said by both Democrats and
Republicans in the Senate--that the bill wouldn't actually
secure our borders and that more would actually be needed. My
point is is that we talk about human rights.
Mr. Malinowski. So we can--so let's start somewhere.
Mr. Mills. We talk about all the things that are
significant and important. We talk about--the American people
is the most important. That's who we're fighting for. That's
who we take the taxpayers' money to provide and protect for.
My own borders and the human rights violations on--I was
just in south Texas for 3 days ago, right there in Mission,
Texas, and going down the borders and watching where I can tell
you it was not secured. It was not--it was very much an open
border.
Mr. Malinowski. A great country can secure its border and
lead in the world. I'm looking at these paintings looking down
on us right now and the people who have sat in that chair,
Republicans and Democrats, who have believed what every
Democratic and Republican president of my lifetime has
believed, the United States can take care of its own people and
we can lead in the world.
Mr. Mills. But we can't at $35.6 trillion where next year
we will pay more in interest payments than we'll pay in
national defense. First time in history. Only 28 nations in the
world's history has ever paid 130 percent GDP and only one
survived, which is Japan.
America is becoming the next fiscal experiment and I don't
think at $35.6 trillion with our GDP to national debt ratio
being where it's at, with the attack on fossil fuels, with the
open borders, with the continuation of funding these kinetic
wars that we don't need to be involved in.
And, sir, I've fought enough kinetic wars to not want to be
involved in more or to put another man or woman on the
battlefield in an area that has nothing to do for a neocon-
neolib interventionist mind set. I'm not an isolationist but
I'm a protectionist.
Mr. Malinowski. Well, then----
Mr. Mills. And so I think that utilizing money in the right
way in human rights on the border matters.
Mr. Mast. The gentleman's time has expired.
The chair now recognizes Mr. Crow for a closing statement.
Mr. Crow. Thank you, Chairman, for calling this important
hearing and thank you to all the witnesses today for having a
robust discussion and talking about some areas for improvement
in oversight.
There is no organization in the world, whether we're
talking about a business, a family, a government agency, or a
department that can't find ways of improving.
That's why this committee is so important and I look
forward to working with all of you and the chairman and finding
ways that we can promote transparency, that we can maybe look
at options for putting appropriate grants that would not
jeopardize people's lives on, you know, internal or external
portals to improve those processes. There's, certainly, ways of
doing that, certainly, ways of improving it.
But, you know, I come back to what I was talking about
earlier, this idea of taking specific incidents of things that
didn't go as they were supposed to go and then using those to
attack the entire system, and to say that grants writ large are
not working and effective is just a non sequitur.
These programs are extremely valuable for our Nation. You
know, I will push back on this idea that we don't have the
ability to take care of ourselves at home and the world at the
same time.
You know, if we are going to be a great power and if we're
going to be a leader in the world we have to do both and we
have to do both not just because it's charity and not because
we just want to. Because it's in our self-interest to do both.
If history has ever shown or taught us anything it's that
when we pull inward and we neglect the world and we don't pay
attention to conflict and oppression in other places it
eventually finds us and it comes to our door. Over and over
again that is the lesson of history.
So these investments are to prevent those problems from
coming to our door and threatening the American people. It's in
our national security interest.
It's in our economic self-interest and these are
investments that are targeted, that have great return on
investment in many cases. Not all of them.
We'll always work on improving. We'll work on figuring out
areas where we can course correct when necessary.
But to cut these programs and attack these programs writ
large is the wrong answer and it doesn't serve our interests
and it doesn't serve the interests of the American people.
So with that, I thank all the witnesses and I yield back,
Chairman.
Mr. Mast. Thank you, Ranking Member Crow. I recognize
myself for closing statement.
I thank you all for your testimony, for your service to
America. I don't like personally when it's ever flippantly said
any organization has room for improvement, any organization can
find a few places where dollars were wasted and they can root
that out and we should fix that.
There's a very specific and important difference between
the U.S. Government and any organization. The U.S. Government
gets every single dollar from we the people.
People go out to work. They work all night. They work one
job. They work three jobs. The government takes their money and
then doesn't just build a road so that they can get to and from
work or to and from school with their kids or whatever.
They send it to countries thousands of miles away at what
everybody has agreed upon, which is a larger extent than every
other country combined. This is not a situation where we can
say, yes, every organization has room for improvement and we
just need to do it a little bit better.
There is tremendous room for this to be--that's an
understatement, to be done better. There is absolutely waste
and abuse and there's absolutely policy that's being made by
the personnel that are out there authoring grants, soliciting
grants, that is not connected to broader goals that every
agency is working in tandem to achieve and that doesn't work
for the American people.
We did speak briefly about the idea of earmarks and
comparing earmarks to transportation earmarks here
domestically. I wish, personally, if I could make the policy
law that every grant that goes abroad--every solicitation for a
grant that goes abroad--be treated like a domestic earmark
where some Member of Congress had to come in here and request
that specifically, that half a million dollars for Nepal or
that $20,000 for drag shows in Ecuador or the thousands of
other things that exist within USAID or other places.
I wish that members had to come in here, make the case,
speak to the diplomats that are going to be executing those
things on the ground, and come in here and make the case to the
appropriators they want that earmark.
I wish that that was the case. I think there would be a lot
less requests for these grants and I think there would be a
much higher level of accountability. I wish and I will continue
to work for policy that these grants not be automatically
reauthorized from not just being executed in 1 year but being
executed 2 years, 3 years, 5 years in a row without them being
looked at again.
I don't think that that is responsible to the American
people, especially when, again, I believe many of these grants
and these solicitations for grants are avowedly left wing and
radical policies that are being funded through the taxpayers
through the State Department by writing a grant and then that
agency is writing a sub grant or a sub grant to that, which
nobody ever gets eyes on, certainly not the U.S. taxpayer.
That being said, thank you for the comments about where you
see room for improvement, where you see the ability to improve
this process. I will continue to work in some of the ways that
you all brought up and some of the ways that I just brought up
and in that.
Pursuant to committee rules all members will have 5 days to
submit statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the
record subject to the length limitations.
And without objection, this committee stands adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:12 p.m., the committee was adjourned.]
APPENDIX
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