[House Hearing, 119 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
HOW LEFTIST NONPROFIT NETWORKS
EXPLOIT FEDERAL TAX DOLLARS TO ADVANCE
A RADICAL AGENDA
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
TUESDAY, JULY 15, 2025
__________
Serial No. 119-30
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAIABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
Available via: http://judiciary.house.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
61-125 WASHINGTON : 2025
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Chair
DARRELL ISSA, California JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland, Ranking
ANDY BIGGS, Arizona Member
TOM McCLINTOCK, California JERROLD NADLER, New York
THOMAS P. TIFFANY, Wisconsin ZOE LOFGREN, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky STEVE COHEN, Tennessee
CHIP ROY, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
SCOTT FITZGERALD, Wisconsin Georgia
BEN CLINE, Virginia ERIC SWALWELL, California
LANCE GOODEN, Texas TED LIEU, California
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey PRAMILA JAYAPAL, Washington
TROY E. NEHLS, Texas J. LUIS CORREA, California
BARRY MOORE, Alabama MARY GAY SCANLON, Pennsylvania
KEVIN KILEY, California JOE NEGUSE, Colorado
HARRIET M. HAGEMAN, Wyoming LUCY McBATH, Georgia
LAUREL M. LEE, Florida DEBORAH K. ROSS, North Carolina
WESLEY HUNT, Texas BECCA BALINT, Vermont
RUSSELL FRY, South Carolina JESUS G. ``CHUY'' GARCIA, Illinois
GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin SYDNEY KAMLAGER-DOVE, California
BRAD KNOTT, North Carolina JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
MARK HARRIS, North Carolina DANIEL S. GOLDMAN, New York
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas
BRANDON GILL, Texas
MICHAEL BAUMGARTNER, Washington
------
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
JEFFERSON VAN DREW, New Jersey, Chair
BARRY MOORE, Alabama JASMINE CROCKETT, Texas, Ranking
ROBERT F. ONDER, Jr., Missouri Member
DEREK SCHMIDT, Kansas JARED MOSKOWITZ, Florida
BRANDON GILL, Texas HENRY C. ``HANK'' JOHNSON, Jr.,
Georgia
CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Majority Staff Director
JULIE TAGEN, Minority Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
OPENING STATEMENTS
Page
The Honorable Jefferson Van Drew, Chair of the Subcommittee on
Oversight from the State of New Jersey......................... 1
The Honorable Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the
Subcommittee on Oversight from the State of Texas.............. 3
The Honorable Jim Jordan, Chair of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Ohio......................................... 5
The Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on
the Judiciary from the State of Maryland....................... 6
WITNESSES
Tyler O'Neil, Author, Senior Editor, The Daily Signal
Oral Testimony................................................. 9
Prepared Testimony............................................. 11
Scott Walter, President, Capital Research Center
Oral Testimony................................................. 19
Prepared Testimony............................................. 21
Mike Gonzalez, Senior Fellow, The Heritage Foundation
Oral Testimony................................................. 34
Prepared Testimony............................................. 36
Luis C.deBaca, Former Ambassador-At-Large, Monitor and Combat
Trafficking in Persons, United States Department of State
Oral Testimony................................................. 45
Prepared Testimony............................................. 47
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC. SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
All materials submitted by the Subcommittee on Oversight, for the
record......................................................... 67
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jasmine Crockett, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight from the State of
Texas, for the record
An article entitled, ``Hungary's Orban demonstrates how to
dismantle democracy : NPR,'' Apr. 20, 2025, NPR
An article entitled, ``Elon Musk Gets '$8 Million A Day' From
Taxpayers--Dem Question Why No One Is Investigating His
Billions Of Dollars From Federal Government,'' Feb. 17,
2025, Yahoo!finance
An article entitled, ``Blue States are bailing out Red
States,'' Feb. 14, 2025, Time Magazine
An article entitled, ``Mass. sends more funding to the feds
than any other state,'' Feb 18, 2025, Axios
An article entitled, ``Convicted sex offender serves as faith
leader of Philly `Moms for Liberty' chapter,'' Nov. 21,
2023, Pennsylvania Independent
An article entitled, ``IRS says churches can now endorse
political candidates,'' Jul. 8, 2025, NPR
An article entitled, ``Publix heiress-backed Jan. 6 group spent
$180K on rally,'' Dec. 20, 2022, Citizens for Ethics, submitted
by the Honorable Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee
on the Judiciary from the State of Maryland, for the record
APPENDIX
Materials submitted by the Honorable Jasmine Crockett, Ranking
Member of the Subcommittee on Oversight from the State of
Texas, for the record
An article entitled, ``What to know about Moms for Liberty
before Trump's event appearance,'' Aug. 30, 2024, Axios
An article entitled, ``Southern Poverty Law Center designates
Moms for Liberty as `extremist' group,'' Jun. 7, 2023,
Florida Politics
An article entitled, ``Moms for Liberty outreach leader
exposed as registered sex offender,'' Nov. 21, 2023, The
Guardian
An article entitled, ``Moms for Liberty urges schools to
follow executive orders targeting transgender students,''
Apr. 18, 2025, KCBX
An article entitled, ``Moms for Liberty chapter splits off
over response to rape allegation against co-founder's
husband,'' Dec. 5, 2023, NBC News
An article entitled, ``Moms for Liberty goes to war with New
York school over five library books,'' May 29, 2025,
Yahoo
A letter to the Honorable Jefferson Van Drew, Chair of the
Subcommittee on Oversight from the State of New Jersey, and the
Honorable Jasmine Crockett, Ranking Member of the Subcommittee
on Oversight from the State of Texas, from the Southern Poverty
Law Center (SPLC), Jul. 17, 2025, submitted by the Honorable
Jamie Raskin, Ranking Member of the Committee on the Judiciary
from the State of Maryland, for the record
HOW LEFTIST NONPROFIT NETWORKS
EXPLOIT FEDERAL TAX DOLLARS TO ADVANCE A RADICAL AGENDA
----------
Tuesday, July 15, 2025
House of Representatives
Subcommittee on Oversight
Committee on the Judiciary
Washington, DC
The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:58 p.m., in
Room 2141, Rayburn House Office Building, the Hon. Jefferson
Van Drew [Chair of the Subcommittee] presiding.
Present: Representatives Van Drew, Jordan, Moore, Onder,
Schmidt, Gill, Crockett, Raskin, and Johnson.
Mr. Van Drew. The Subcommittee will come to order. Without
objection, the Chair is authorized to declare a recess at any
time.
We welcome everyone to today's hearing on how nonprofits
exploit Federal tax dollars to advance what we believe is a
radical agenda.
I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore, who
will lead us in the pledge of allegiance, and then I ask that
we remain standing for a moment of silence.
All. I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States
of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one
Nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for
all.
Mr. Van Drew. I am now going to recognize myself for an
opening statement.
Welcome to all of you to today's hearing on the
Subcommittee on Oversight. Today's hearing will expose how
Leftist, nonprofit networks hijack and exploit your Federal tax
dollars to advance a radical agenda, and we will hopefully
answer the most important question of the day--and I'm having a
little bit of fun here--who the hell is George Soros? We're
going to find out.
Your tax dollars, your money--money that you earned, and
you worked hard for, have been funneling into Left-wing
nonprofits pushing extremist causes. It's not speculation. It's
not just an idea. It's a pattern, and it's the truth.
Under Democratic leadership, Federal agencies awarded
hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to supposedly
neutral, nonprofit organizations, but those nonprofits just so
happen to be run by their political allies. They used your
money--your money--to fund policies you never voted for and
probably, in most cases, the majority of Americans strongly
oppose.
Is this how our democracy is supposed to work? I think we
know the answer, and I think we know it's not supposed to work
that way. Is this how your tax dollars should be spent? That, I
do know. Regardless of what your opinion is, absolutely not. It
is an abuse of power, one that is quietly restructuring
American society in ways no one asked for and they certainly
never voted for. We've seen it again and again, over and over.
The last administration disbursed $3 billion to a migrant
housing group whose employees were accused of sexually abusing
children. Nearly one million went to a group linked to riots in
Los Angeles. Over 1.8 million meant for women's safety overseas
instead was used to promote gender ideology through LGBTQ+
grants. Even if you--here's the point. Even if you agree with
the ideology, we should all agree our tax dollars shouldn't be
paying for this.
Then, there's the biggest culprit of them all, the
mastermind, the guy behind the curtain, the guy in the dark,
George Soros. Who is he? What is he about? He's not just
another billionaire with strong opinions. We've got plenty of
them. He's the architect of an international Left-wing
influence machine. His Open Society Foundation sits at the
center of a global web of nonprofits, grant recipients,
political operatives, and shadow partners. Yes, despite his
vast wealth, he also takes your tax dollars and uses them as
well.
Let's look at the facts. The Vera Institute of Justice,
Soros connected, received over $60 million in Federal contracts
from Democrats. Impact Justice, also Soros connected, took in
over 30 million to push weak-on-crime agendas instead of
prosecuting criminals. These are the same groups driving the
movement to decriminalize crime, defund the police, and
destabilize our cities.
George Soros does not stop there. He doesn't stop at
nonprofits. He has poured tens of millions into buying
political influence and quietly bankrolling soft-on-crime
prosecutors and attorneys general in cities like San Francisco,
Philadelphia, Chicago, and others. That's why some of them have
become havens for lawlessness.
He's buying up radio stations, thousands of them, and media
outlets across the country to control the political message and
drown out any conservative voice in Red States or wherever.
That's not philanthropy. That's propaganda. It's funded with
your tax dollars.
Beyond the efforts of George Soros, Democrats also funneled
over one billion in DEI-related grants through the Department
of Education. They sent taxpayer funds to anti-Israel groups
and climate radicals determined to dismantle American energy
independence.
The USAID used your money to fund--I love this one. I
really don't. I'm being sarcastic. Everybody is ready, right?
Because I really want to know what the deal is with this--a
transgender comic book in Peru. Because we don't have needs in
our country, right? We've got money to fund a transgender comic
book in Peru, and $13 million for Sesame Street in Iraq. Come
on. Is that American policy? Is that what your paycheck should
fund? I don't think so. Regardless of your ideology, I don't
think so.
Why do we need a government--this is why. No, I won't even
ask the question. I'll say we need a government that is
transparent, accountable, and focused on American interests:
America First. We've already saved--this administration has
already saved $190 billion in taxpayer money by rooting out
this waste. That's what accountability looks like. That's what
real leadership delivers.
Today's hearing isn't just about spreadsheets and it's not
just about budget line items. It's about who controls the
country: Unelected billionaires or the people who live, vote,
and work here. It's about restoring accountability and ending
ideological freeloading on the taxpayers' dime. It's about
drawing a line in the sand and saying, ``No more.'' It's about
the American people are tired of being lied to. It is about the
American people being tired of their money funding somebody
else's political agenda. It's about the American people being
tired of being ignored.
Today, we're going to follow the money. We'll name the
names. We will lay bare how the system was rigged, and we'll
make it clear, your tax dollars should serve only one purpose:
The interest of the American people, not the Soros agenda, not
the nonprofit cartel.
You know what's a neat gig if you can get it? You make a
nonprofit. You create a nonprofit. You spend a little bit of
money. Then because you've got the nonprofit, all kinds of
money pours in from the taxpayer. That's not how the system was
supposed to work. This country does belong to the American
people, and it's time Washington started acting like it.
With that, I recognize the Ranking Member, Ms. Crockett.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Chair, and thank you
so much to our witnesses for being here.
Unfortunately, we are witnessing today yet another
political stunt, plain and simple. Republicans are here drawing
a clear line in the sand. They will stop at nothing to advance
Donald Trump's agenda, and the dangerous blueprint laid out in
Project 2025, even if it means targeting the very groups that
are working to protect our communities and support our law
enforcement agencies.
Let's be clear: My colleagues across the aisle have shown
little to no interest in working with Democrats on real
solutions for the American people. Instead of addressing
pressing civil rights issues constituents actually care about,
like wrongful deportations of U.S. citizens, ongoing efforts to
undermine voting rights, or the serious flaws in our criminal
justice system, this Committee is spending its time holding a
hearing with a title that sounds like it was ripped from a
conspiracy blog. This hearing, ``How Leftist Nonprofit Networks
Exploit Federal Tax Dollars to Advance a Radical Agenda.''
Really?
When I listened to you, Mr. Chair--who I do respect--I
heard you say things about why is it that we're giving money in
other places. I want to make sure that I answer that question
because to put America first looks like we are going to keep
American citizens safe. There is such a thing as soft power,
and that is exactly what we were trying to do when we engaged
in things such as USAID.
When you start to talk about whether or not Sesame Street
or anything else that's on NPR or PBS ends up in other places,
this is so there is not this warped thought process about the
Western world or about the United States. We're talking about
making sure that we don't end up allowing people to be
radicalized against us because they have a terrible vision of
us, because they may be in a government that actually puts out
bad, terrible propaganda about us. For pennies on the dollar,
we are able to educate those around the world on who we really
are in America and keep Americans safe.
Soft power is really power, and it minimizes how much money
we have to spend, say, on dropping bombs in countries at a
random time without, say, Congressional authority, but I
digress. This kind of rhetoric--whether directed at nonprofits,
their leaders, or elected officials--is not only reckless, but
it is beneath the dignity of this institution. Sadly, this
isn't the first time this has happened.
Over the past six months, we've seen hearing after hearing
do nothing but attack nonprofits as well as those who are just
generally on a mission to serve, protect, and uplift vulnerable
communities.
In just my own Committees, this has got to be the second or
third time I've had to sit through the same tired narrative. If
my Republican colleagues are truly concerned about taxpayer
dollars being misused for political agendas, I would encourage
them to take a long, hard look in the mirror. Since we're here
again spending more of the American people's money and time on
political theater, let's at least stick to the facts.
Fact: Under the Trump Administration, the Department of
Justice stripped hundreds of millions of dollars from the
Office of Justice Programs, money that funded essential
community safety initiatives like victim services, gang
prevention, and reentry support.
Fact: Trump and Republicans slashed grants to
organizations, like the National Organization for Victim
Assistance which trains advocates who staff domestic violence
shelters, hotlines, and rape crisis centers.
Fact: They cut over $10 million in funding to the National
Policing Institute, a nonprofit helping rural police
departments reduce violent crime.
Fact: This week, Republicans are trying to gut PEPFAR, a
lifesaving program that partners with nonprofits around the
world and has saved more than 26 million lives.
Let's not forget many of these cuts were laid out in
Project 2025, a radical, far-Right playbook drafted by
hyperconservative nonprofits for the express purpose of
dismantling the very government institutions and systems that
serve the public good. Ironically, we even have one of the
authors of Project 2025 here with us today.
Let's not pretend this is about nonprofit accountability
because, if it were, this Committee would also be investigating
the Conservative Partnership Institute which has pushed anti-
immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+, antivaccine propaganda, and hosted
efforts to challenge the 2020 Election. Mind you, as we have
these organizations that are pushing antivaccine propaganda, we
know that measles has reached a 13-year high when measles had
actually been over and done with. Now, that we don't believe in
vaccines, now children are our targets, unfortunately. Yes,
they are dying.
The New Century Foundation, a White nationalist
organization that somehow maintains its 501(c)(3) status to
launder hate speech through the language of ``intellectual
inquiry.'' They would investigate Turning Point USA, which has
been linked to organizers of the January 6th insurrection. The
Republicans aren't talking about those groups because this
isn't about accountability. It's about silencing organizations
that challenge Republican power. It's about targeting
nonprofits that protect the very people this Trump-aligned
movement continues to harm.
These organizations are defending victims of unlawful
actions. They are helping to combat global pandemics. They are
supporting police departments when this very Committee won't.
They are working to build safer, healthier communities while
Trump and his allies defund them to hand out tax breaks to
billionaires.
Maybe that's the real threat here. They are effective. They
get people off the streets, out of prison, and into
opportunity. They educate people about injustice, and that
apparently scares some folks more than any so-called radical
agenda because the only thing truly radical about these
nonprofits is their belief that human beings deserve dignity,
opportunity, and equal protection under the law, values my
Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten along with love
thy neighbor.
Instead of demonizing the groups trying to do right by our
communities, maybe we should be asking how to support them, how
to ensure taxpayer dollars reach the people who need it the
most, because this hearing should be about public safety, not
political vendettas. Until that happens, these hearings are
doing more harm than good.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Ranking Member.
I now recognize the Chair of the Full Committee, Chair
Jordan.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
In simple terms, they used your money against you. Take
your tax money, spend it on stupid things and things you don't
approve. This is what the Biden-Harris Administration did:
Millions of taxpayer dollars on their progressive pet projects.
As the Chair highlighted, $1 billion in DEI grants from the
Education Department; $2 million in grants for gender ideology
from the Justice Department; and millions of dollars for
progressive criminal justice reforms. Radical open-border
activities, billions and billions of dollars for that. As the
Chair mentioned, our favorite, of course, is Sesame Street in
Iraq. Bert and Ernie, Big Bird in Baghdad. Wow. What a great
use of taxpayer dollars.
That's what this hearing is about. It's talking about all
the stupid things they spent your money on. Now, the good news
is the American people said, ``We're going to put President
Trump in the White House,'' and he put this group together
called DOGE, and they have identified all kinds of crazy
things, and later this week, hopefully, maybe even today, the
Senate is going to vote on the first package to rescind some of
stupid things they took your money and spent it on.
I want to thank the Chair for his hard work on this
Subcommittee--all the good hearings he has had--and for this
hearing and thank our witnesses for being here.
With that, I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Chair. I now recognize the Ranking
Member of the Committee on the Judiciary, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you very much, Chair Van Drew.
``Pointing fingers is for losers.'' I'm quoting our
colleague, Representative Chip Roy, from last week. This has
become a mantra for our colleagues in the wake of the
devastating flooding in Texas which cost already 132 lives with
still 160 people missing. It's now an article of faith among
our colleagues.
In the age of climate change disasters, like Hurricane
Helene, which cost 200 lives in North Carolina, or deadly
tornadoes in the Midwest--you name it--in the age of out-of-
control gun violence, whether in Uvalde, Buffalo, Charleston,
or Parkland, we should never engage in finger-pointing or
casting blame or attributing responsibility to individuals,
although, of course, Donald Trump finger-points and casts blame
at Democratic leaders as he did recently with Governor Newsom
with the wildfires in California.
In any event, the point is we don't really want to know
which individuals are responsible. We should be addressing the
underlying systemic problems, like climate change, effective
emergency response and planning, or mass gun violence and
reducing access to military-style assault weapons, rather than
vilifying people and casting blame on a partisan basis.
Fine. Let's adopt that rule. Finger-pointing is for losers.
For this Committee, no to finger-pointing, yes to problem-
solving. This entire hearing is nothing but an absurd political
finger-pointing. It's not even finger-pointing at people who
actually run our government or occupy public office. It's
finger-pointing at not-for-profit groups, like Church World
Service or Huyen Lutheran community services and the reviled
philanthropist George Soros, who has given away hundreds of
millions of dollars to make the world a better place.
I don't like everything that every Right-wing, not-for-
profit group does in America or around the world, but I don't
think it merits a full-blown Congressional hearing. We didn't
even have a hearing on the richest billionaire in the world,
Elon Musk, who actually had a government job running DOGE,
destroying large parts of our government and firing tens of
thousands of our Federal workers. The Republicans didn't even
call in Elon Musk for a hearing or have a hearing about what he
was doing, but they want to have a hearing in 2025 about George
Soros, and all the old, tired, exhausted, absurd conspiracy
theories again.
I don't see any--and these witnesses can correct me if I'm
wrong. I perused all their statements. I didn't see a single
one of them allege a single crime, or anything illegal going
on. They just don't like the things that he invests in. They
don't like what certain not-for-profit groups do. I don't love
everything that the Right-wing not-for-profits do. Why are we
having a hearing about this? What an absurd waste of time.
If our motto is going to be, ``finger-pointing is for
losers,'' this hearing is for losers, because all this is
finger-pointing at somebody who doesn't even have political
power. This is an oversight hearing before the Oversight
Subcommittee that's not doing any oversight on the government.
Indeed, the Judiciary Committee has not yet conducted a single
oversight meeting this Congress with a single government
witness. Not one.
They've not called Attorney General Bondi. They've not
called FBI Director Patel. They haven't even called anybody to
talk about George Soros from the government. They won't subject
any of their government officials to any cross-examination by
this panel.
Now, this is an absurd waste of our time. Why are we not
addressing urgent policy problems like the pervasive,
nationwide violation of due process and First Amendment rights
by ICE and other Federal agents who arrive now in unmarked
cars, in plain clothes, without badges or arrest warrants, and
then snatch people off the streets and send them to a torturous
prison in El Salvador? Do you think the U.S. House of
Representatives Judiciary Committee should have an interest in
defending due process?
Some of my colleagues say, ``You're not for due process for
guilty people, are you?'' Well, yes, because we don't know if
they're guilty until they've gotten due process. That's why
``due process'' are the two most beautiful words in the English
language. It's what separates our rights and our freedoms from
arbitrary State power.
Why are we not addressing the threats to the security and
safety of judges who are working to uphold the rule of law, and
now are subject not just to slander and defamation and signs
all over Congress saying impeach this judge or that judge for
standing up for the Constitution? Now, violent threats not just
to them, but to their family members. Why are we not addressing
the mass firing of dozens of experienced crime-fighting Federal
prosecutors at the Department of Justice who have been fired en
masse for the sole reason that they did their job and
prosecuted police beaters, violent insurrectionists, and other
rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to
overthrow a Presidential Election in the United States of
America and attack our Constitution? Why are we not having a
hearing about that?
We could actually have a hearing--here's something we can
agree on, Mr. Chair, on a bipartisan basis. Why don't we have a
hearing on what the whole country is talking about right now if
you turn on the TV and go on the internet? Why don't we have a
hearing about the continuing suppression and cover-up of the
information in the Epstein files, about a child sex ring run by
powerful people? The whole country--not just Republicans and
MAGA, but liberal Democrats are in an uproar because President
Trump, Attorney General Bondi, and their allies in the DOJ and
FBI repeatedly claimed in public that the Epstein files have
the names of power elite actors involved in human trafficking
and sexual abuse of minors with convicted sex offender Jeffrey
Epstein, and they promised to release all the information in
the name of maximal transparency. Do you remember that?
They said this would be the most transparent administration
in the history of the United States, but now they are shouting
nothing to see here, sweeping it all under the rug, steadfastly
refusing to release the files despite broad bipartisan demand
to release the Epstein files after everything they have said
publicly.
The Democrat Members of this Committee sent a letter today
at 2 p.m., demanding that the President keep his word and
release the files to the American people and that Chair Jordan
call a bipartisan hearing where we can work together to get to
the bottom of this. How about a hearing on that? Do any of my
colleagues want to talk about that, or does everybody want to
talk about George Soros? I'm curious to know which of my
colleagues support our call for a bipartisan hearing on the
Epstein files.
Here we are at this utterly pointless hearing spinning
absurd, discredited conspiracy theories again about George
Soros. Again, I don't see a single claim of any criminality or
illegality taking place. They don't like the guy's politics. I
can find you 50 Right-wing billionaires whose politics I don't
like. So what? What an utter absurd waste of time this is.
It's an attempt to change the subject obviously from what
America wants to talk about now, which is why, after promising
for all of these years to release the Epstein files, will
President Trump not release them. We know they were friends. We
know they hung out. We know there are all these pictures
together. We know that Michael Wolff, Trump's biographer, said
he saw photographs of Donald Trump and Epstein with minor-aged
girls. Well, where does that leave us? That doesn't look good
if they then cover up all the information. Come clean and
release the information, as the Republicans have repeatedly
promised to do.
I look forward to hearing--if there are any allegations of
criminality or illegality, they should be turned over
immediately to the Department of Justice today. Otherwise, this
hearing, I'm afraid, Mr. Chair, is for losers. It's about
finger-pointing at people who don't have any governmental power
at all. It's old, recycled allegations, and we're not advancing
the ball on anything.
At the very least, the Judiciary Committee should be
demanding that the Epstein files be made public. That is a
bipartisan agenda, or at least I thought it was, and if
something has changed, please let me know. I thought that we
were all for that together, and we should move on today.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Mr. Ranking Member, I thank you for your
testimony and fundamentally disagree with you on everything.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be
included in the record, and we're now going to introduce
today's--
Mr. Raskin. Please elaborate if you would, Mr. Chair. I'm
happy to hear it.
Mr. Van Drew. I don't want to hold up the whole hearing. It
would take a considerable amount of time. It really would. I
want to give these fine gentlemen a chance from both sides of
the aisle to place their testimony into the record, but we
certainly could do that, and we may as we move along.
Now, today's witnesses. Thank you for being here, all of
you.
Mr. Tyler O'Neil. Mr. O'Neil is a Senior Editor at The
Daily Signal, a news and commentary outlet. He previously
served as Managing Editor of The Daily Signal from 2022-2025
before transi-
tioning to his current role to spend more time writing. Mr.
O'Neil's articles focus on nonprofits among other topics.
Mr. Scott Walter. Mr. Walter is the president of Capital
Research Center, a nonprofit watchdog organization. He
previously served as Special Assistant to President George W.
Bush and as Vice President of the Philanthropy Roundtable.
Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Mike Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez is the--I
want to say this right--Angeles T. Arredondo--say it for me.
Mr. Gonzalez. Angeles T. Arredondo.
Mr. Van Drew. You said it so much better. Thank you.
E pluribus unum--that, I can say--Senior Fellow at The
Heritage Foundation where his research focuses on identity
politics, multiculturalism, and foreign policy. He previously
worked as a journalist and served in the Securities and
Exchange Commission and the State Department.
Finally, Ambassador Luis C.deBaca. Mr. C.deBaca is a
Professor from Practice at the University of Michigan Law
School. He previously served as Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor
and Combat Trafficking in Persons during the Obama
Administration where he worked to advance efforts to combat
contemporary forms of slavery.
We will begin by swearing you all in. Would you please rise
and raise your right hand?
Do you swear or affirm that under penalty of perjury, the
testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best
of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God?
Thank you. Please be seated. Let the record reflect that
the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
Please know that your written testimony will be entered
into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask you to
summarize your testimony in five minutes.
Mr. O'Neil, you may begin.
STATEMENT OF TYLER O'NEIL
Mr. O'Neil. Mr. Chair, Ranking Member, thank you for the
opportunity to testify before you today.
Did you know that millions of your tax dollars go to fund
Leftist activist groups who then lobby the government for
policies you may disagree with? The funding comes in at least
three ways: Directly through contracts and grants, indirectly
through unions taking Federal employees dues and sending a
portion of it to activist groups, and then obliquely through
taxpayer-funded union time.
Examples of direct funding are legions. The USAID awarded
more than $800,000 to New Venture Fund--a dark money,
passthrough nonprofit that cloaks which donors give to which
nonprofits--and $27 million to the Tides Center, another dark
money nonprofit that supports anti-Israel rioters among other
issues.
An arm of the Open Society Foundations, the funding organ
set up by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros and now
run by his son Alex, received so much money from USAID that it
found it worthwhile to sue the agency to bypass guardrails on
funding. The resulting legal battle reached the Supreme Court
not once, but twice. The Justice Department, the key purview of
this Committee, funded at least one major Soros-backed NGO.
George Soros supports rogue prosecutors who lower the
penalties for crime. Not surprisingly, many of the cities with
the highest murder rates have prosecutors backed by Soros. The
Vera Institute of Justice, which says the criminal justice
system is rooted in a history of White supremacy, received more
than $11 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
The Biden DOJ also paid Vera 73 million in contracts, mostly
for providing legal services to immigrant children. In just
over one year, HHS paid Vera nearly 200 million for refugee
assistance.
Vera says it aims to establish a right to representation
for all immigrants facing deportation. That's a rather curious
stance to take under Biden, when at least nine million illegals
entered the country. Meanwhile, NGOs received hefty government
funding to house and transport immigrants across the country.
The U.S. Committee For Refugees and Immigrants, one of many
such groups, received 98 percent of its revenue--a whopping
$284 million--from government grants in the 2023 fiscal year.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society gave the group $75,000.
The government also supports the Left's dark money network
indirectly. Federal employees in a union give part of their
taxpayer-funded paychecks to the union, ostensibly for
representation in bargaining for perks like working from home.
Yet, instead of using all the money to help employees, unions
take a portion of those dues and send it to activist NGOs.
The SEIU, for example, gave $1.6 million to the New Venture
Fund and $1.8 million to the Tides Foundation. The AFL-CIO gave
$250,000 to the New Venture Fund, and $100,000 to the Tides
Foundation among other Left-wing groups. Both the SEIU and the
AFL-CIO bankroll the Center for American Progress, which sent
at least 60 staff into the Biden Administration, and Demos,
which helped write and helped implement a policy turning
government offices into voter registration machines likely to
help Democrats.
Many of these unions have sued to block the Trump
Administration's reforms to the Administrative State. Not only
did the SEIU and AFL-CIO send part of members' dues to Leftist
causes, but they also benefit from a process known as official
time. Federal employees can bill the taxpayer for the time they
spend not doing their jobs but doing work for the union. This
creates another stream of taxpayer funds supporting unions that
then back Leftist causes.
As we've seen, your tax dollars fund the Left's dark money
network through grants, indirectly through union dues, and
obliquely through taxpayer-funded union time. In this and other
ways, Americans are forced to foot the bill for activist causes
they may disagree with, like climate alarmism, gender ideology,
open borders, and the Left's racial rhetoric. Congress should
seek to prevent this perverse State of affairs.
[The prepared statement of Mr. O'Neil follows:]
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Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. O'Neil.
Mr. Walter, you may begin. Thank you.
STATEMENT OF SCOTT WALTER
Mr. Walter. Chairman Van Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, and
the distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for
the honor of testifying. I am the President of the Capital
Research Center where we study money flows to nonprofits and
other special interests.
America's nonprofit sector is one for glories, the envy of
the world, but though I admire many American nonprofits,
including, for instance, The Heritage Foundation, I don't want
tax dollars going to The Heritage or to my own nonprofit, and
neither they nor we ever have or will accept a penny of
government money. If tax dollars ever go to a nonprofit, it
should probably be performing biblical good works: Healing the
sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and the like. Tax
dollars should never go to nonprofits best known for pushing
controversial social issues or meddling in politics here and
abroad. Yet, that is what so many federally funded nonprofits,
especially those receiving USAID funding, have done.
This improper funding harms both the charitable sector and
our politics. It harms innocent American nonprofits abroad by
stigmatizing all American nonprofits. I've heard from leaders
of those nonprofits who resent their genuine good works being
ignored as they become and localize just one more American NGO
fighting for Soros' hard-Left agenda.
Imagine you're a nonprofit leader who struggles to raise
private funding as she desperately fights human trafficking in
a poor country. Meanwhile, a wealthy Soros-funded network of
NGOs in the same country receiving the American Government's
imprimatur through USAID funds is loudly trying to
decriminalize the very prostitution that's the engine driving
the human trafficking you are trying to stop. This Left-wing
collusion of government and NGOs not only hurts your noble
charitable work directly. It also makes local citizens and
government view you as the enemy.
The same improper funding hurts our politics as well. We
hear a lot about so-called dark money in politics, but what is
darker than the funding of alleged charities that work in
foreign countries to elect politicians they like to, say, the
European Parliament, or to enact government policies involving
controversial issues like prostitution and abortion, or even to
change entire regimes? Much evidence has been published on the
Soros' network trying to do these things as well as on the NGO
networks of other American billionaires, including those with
the same last name, foundation.
My written testimony documents that massive amounts of tax
dollars going to numerous improper grantees. Examples include
the 15 groups receiving Federal funds who sued the current
administration in just its first month. Four were Justice
Department grantees and three USAID grantees. Then, there's
TransLatina Coalition, a radical group that advocates for,
among other things, expanding abortion, abolishing ICE, and one
day abolishing the police. It receives funding from Justice as
well as Labor and HHS. Fully half of its 2023 revenues came
from government, proving that so many NGOs, nongovernmental
organizations, are really BGOs, basically government
organizations.
Another group should especially worry this Judiciary
Committee: The Environmental Law Institute, which receives
funds not only from Justice, but also from the EPA, the
National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Homeland
Security, Agriculture, and State. It runs the notorious Climate
Judiciary Project, which allegedly educates Federal and State
judges on climate issues, but whose speakers, as one critic
notes, come exclusively from the climate tort bar's witnesses
and amicus brief filers. Senator Cruz accurately describes it
as ``ex parte indoctrination.''
Many more grantees boosting the Left's agenda occur in the
immigration field. As one critic puts it, billions of tax
dollars have been used to construct a shadow immigration system
that operates in direct defiance of U.S. Federal immigration
law, yet is financed partly by Congressional appropriations.
One Justice Department grantee in this area is Chinese For
Affirmative Action, which denounced Secretary Rubio's policy of
revoking visas for persons tied to the Chinese Communist Party
as racist and dangerous.
Another Justice Department grantee and contractor is the
Acacia Center for Justice, spun off from the Vera Institute, a
hard-Left, Soros-backed group famous for its soft-on-crime,
soft-on-illegal immigration advocacy. It received $769 million
from the last administration, though it insists no immigrant
should be detained, electronic surveillance of illegal aliens
must be abolished, and the use of local law enforcement for
immigration purposes must be dismantled.
If this funding were put to a vote of the American public,
little to none of it would survive the democratic process. This
funding is democracy suppression. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Walter follows:]
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Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Walter. Mr. Gonzalez, you may
begin.
STATEMENT OF MIKE GONZALEZ
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you, Chair Van Drew, Ranking Members
Crockett and Raskin, for giving me the opportunity to appear
before you today. The views I express are my own, and should
not be construed as representing the official position of The
Heritage Foundation.
For over a decade, I've studied how Leftist nonprofits,
particularly George Soros' Open Society Foundations, team up
with government agencies like USAID to push the pet causes of
the Left domestically and overseas. These agendas promoting
divisive issues, like transgenderism for minors, euthanasia,
and drug decriminalization lack broad support in the U.S. and
harm our national security interests by alienating conservative
societies overseas. Eliminating this nexus between Big Left and
our money is at the heart of much of what DOGE has done since
President Trump took office.
I have firsthand experience with how this nexus can hurt
Americans. In March 2017, I wrote a The Heritage Foundation
report calling for Congress and the State Department to
investigate joint efforts between Soros groups and USAID. I
wrote that,
In the promotion of radical agendas in several countries, USAID
has found an ideal partner in George Soros, who throws his
considerable fortune behind efforts to fight traditional
Western values.
The hearings I called for in my piece never took place
until today, but something did happen to me. Two and a half
months after my report, a shadowy outfit calling itself the
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project published a
sinister article that smeared me and The Heritage Foundation.
When I looked into it, it turned out that the OCCRP was funded
both by Soros foundations and USAID.
I quickly wrote a column refuting their smears and said the
OCCRP did what bullies always do: It backtracked amending its
report. Let's not lose sight of what happened. A foreign entity
backed by Soros and my own tax dollars was attacking me, an
American, for daring to question the influence of the nexus in
Macedonia.
I want to underline that I believe it is Soros' right to
spend his money supporting his convictions. I may not agree
with these ideas, but I would not call for interference in any
American's right to act politically. Likewise, of course, some
of the USAID programs did do good. I'm glad that Secretary
Rubio says he will keep some programs if they advance U.S.
interests. What I do take issue with is the U.S. Government
working with Leftist NGOs to promote causes with which large
majorities of Americans disagree and which are inimical to U.S.
interests.
You see, the Left has cleverly built a machine to finance
itself with money that the taxman extorts from hardworking
Americans. Because it has captured the cultural heights, this
new Left has been able to invent some terms that make
resistance difficult. Thus, we have sustainability, sex
workers, and compassion care rather than economy-crushing
climate extremism, prostitution in human trafficking, and
killing grandma once she has become a burden. It doesn't matter
what you call any of these activities, however. They all turn
cities into Dantesque hellholes and leave behind human debris,
men and women who are empty husks rather than beings with
purpose and hope.
The collusion between Big Left and taxpayer money peaked
under the Obama and Biden Administrations. In Guatemala,
USAID's focus on activists who also received financing from
Soros institutions and the Ford Foundation, frustrated the pro-
U.S. President Alejandro Giammattei, who once told me he
thought our embassy was undermining his government.
In Hungary, USAID provided funding to the OSF which went on
to spend $781 million between 2016-2023 in pursuit of its
political agenda. Hungary--lest we forget--is a strategically
located U.S. ally, whether liberals like its pro-U.S. Prime
Minister or not. The same thing happened in Macedonia where an
advisor to former President Ivanov--also pro-U.S.--told me that
USAID and OSF had begun a regime-change operation.
Dismantling this nexus is critical. This is why President
Trump has taken up arms against woke universities, museums, and
public broadcasters--a battle being played out in the Senate
today--and other institutions laundering the hard-earned money
of Americans on behalf of Cultural Marxism. However, I also
urge this Committee to demand a comprehensive audit of USAID
and government entities to expose how taxpayer money is spent
and with whom.
I want to thank you for your time and for letting me
address this important matter.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gonzalez follows:]
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Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. Ambassador C.deBaca,
you may begin.
STATEMENT OF LUIS C.deBaca
Mr. C.deBaca. Chair Van Drew and Chair Jordan, Ranking
Members Raskin and Crockett, and the Members of the
Subcommittee, I'm Luis C.deBaca, a proud alum of the Judiciary
Committee staff. It's an honor to be back in this room.
I spent almost 25 years in government, much of it
investigating and prosecuting cases involving human trafficking
and other crimes. America has always led the fight against
transnational crime, especially human trafficking, and I've
seen firsthand how important law enforcement and NGO
partnerships are from across the ideological spectrum in
protecting the American people.
Those partnerships can't be assembled in the middle of a
case. It's too late at that point. The DOJ, USAID, and the
State Department worked collaboratively to bring criminals to
justice and save and support victims of trafficking and sexual
abuse around the world. It takes partners motivated by their
faith, by their dedication to crime victims, and their
compassion for the abused and neglected. The NGOs and
governments worked together and made America safer.
Some highlights. We worked with environmental groups in the
Catholic Church to rescue Filipino and Indonesian workers lured
into horrible conditions at sea. In Mexico, USAID funding stood
up modern court systems that could withstand the pressure of
their cartels while DOJ provided prosecutor training and the
State Department supported evangelical groups in providing
shelter to sex trafficking victims.
In Peru, Justice aid and State-coordinated funding to
entities that ran the gamut from law enforcement to legal
service providers to Catholic nuns, all to choke off the
profits from illegal gold mining and the sex trafficking that
followed in its wake. Today, DHS seizures of slave-made goods
continue and hopefully intensifies because of partnerships with
NGOs who bring credible referrals about Uyghur and other forced
labor in the supply chain.
These efforts worked thanks to the support of Congress,
interagency coordination, and vital collaboration with NGOs.
It's a fight that has always been proudly bipartisan and
powered by Right-Left coalitions because it embodies American
values. I'm proud to have worked with a diverse range of NGOs
on these issues, from International Justice Mission and The
Heritage Foundation, to Human Rights Watch and Rabbis For Human
Rights.
Not all the NGOs apply for government funding, but when
they do, they receive support that comes with the highest
standards. They are subjected to thorough reviews, including
vetting, to prevent trafficking, terrorism, human rights
violations, or other criminal activity. Congress provided the
rules guiding these reviews, and when I was in government, we
worked closely with our Committees of oversight every step of
the way.
Additionally, to maximize effect and to prevent redundancy,
antitrafficking funding is coordinated across the agencies.
Safeguards don't stop just at issuance. Their work is tested
through ongoing grants monitoring and monitoring and evaluation
efforts. The results are not just protection and restoration of
victims, but prosecution and convictions.
In recent weeks, innovative offices have been defunded and
shut down or moved about on agency org charts in service of an
imaginary set of efficiencies. Having decimated USAID in recent
days, the administration has gutted offices devoted to global
criminal justice, antiterrorism, and counter-trafficking. When
experts are forced out, reassigned, or RIF'd, America is less
safe. The only actors that should welcome these moves are
criminals and those corrupt or complacent nations that allow
them to act with impunity.
Is there a hidden agenda here? Every nonprofit that works
to support survivors does indeed have a policy agenda. They are
committed to serving trafficking victims. They do from all
parts of our political system and for countless reasons, but
they stand up for trafficking victims.
Women shelters that have expanded their mission beyond
domestic violence, churches, or even just motivated people of
faith, who have heard the call to serve, worker organizations
that won't stand for abuses in the fields, long-haul truckers
who have asked, What can I do? Their commitment and the
ideological and cultural diversity that matches the bipartisan
antitrafficking consensus of this Committee is something we
should celebrate. They deserve our thanks and the thanks of the
American people for their tireless efforts.
For me, this goes beyond my law enforcement career. My
parents weren't just farmers and ranchers. They implemented
these types of partnerships during the cold war. During the
first Bush Administration, the government sent my parents out
to help host socialist societies transition to a capitalist
agricultural system. Later, my mother witnessed the Chinese
showing up in West Africa competing for the hearts and minds of
the Ghanaian people through road-building projects.
Today, my 90-year-old mother worries about the price she
can get for her soybeans given the sudden reduction of U.S.
food assistance, and she worries about the loss of American
power and stature in the world.
Stepping away from U.S. leadership doesn't just impact that
village in Africa. It impacts the small towns of rural America
for whom feeding the world and raising a family is everything.
Stepping away from the United States leadership and
partnerships that advance them make us less safe at home and
abroad.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. C.deBaca follows:]
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Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Ambassador C.deBaca.
Without objection, Mr. Kiley will be permitted to
participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning
the witnesses if a Member yields him time for that purpose.
We are now going to proceed under the five-minute rule with
questions, and the Chair will recognize--let me see who is
going to go first here, actually. Are you ready? OK.
The Chair will recognize the gentleman from Alabama.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
This will be for our Republican witnesses. What are some of
the worst Federal grants that the Biden-Harris Administration
approved?
What about Mr. O'Neil, what's your opinion? What's the
worst Federal grant that you heard or top 10 maybe?
Mr. O'Neil. There are too many to choose from, but I think
the biggest overall is just the way that we funded the
immigration industrial complex that moved illegal aliens across
the country through--as The Heritage Foundation's project
showed, to every single Congressional District except one.
Mr. Moore. Mr. Gonzalez, do you have a worst?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. I would say the grants that Samantha
Power, the head of USAID, and USAID itself made to Hungarian
opposition forces in 2023, I think it was. Hungary is a NATO
ally which borders Ukraine. We shouldn't be trying to make a
regime change as our Ambassador was doing in Budapest. This is
not soft power. This is the opposite. That was really--I don't
know--very counterproductive to the kind of policy we should
have with an ally.
Mr. Moore. With an ally. Viktor Orban is a fine President
and ally of the country.
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. He's the Prime Minister. Yes. The Left
doesn't like him. He's very pro-U.S. I don't, you know--
whatever. Either way, we shouldn't be doing this in an ally
country.
Mr. Moore. Securing their borders, he was pretty on that
too.
Mr. Gonzalez. Right.
Mr. Moore. Mr. Walter, what about it? What's your--
Mr. Walter. I, too, am overwhelmed a little by the
question, and I default to a website, actually, that we have
called the DOGEfiles.org which lists what we believe to be the
worst grants from most of the main departments of the Federal
Government.
Mr. Moore. So, Mr. O'Neil, how many individuals involved in
these Leftist dark money groups worked within the Biden-Harris
Administration? Any idea?
Mr. O'Neil. A specific number, I don't have. I do know that
60 officials went from the Center for American Progress to the
Biden Administration. Overall, what I'll say is there are some
that really stand out.
I think of Tracy Stone-Manning who is actually at the
National Wildlife Federation who, is notorious because she
wrote a letter on behalf of tree spiking, eco-terrorists, and
then she led up a department, the Bureau of Land Management,
that oversees about half of the Federal lands in the United
States.
Mr. Moore. Mr. Walter, how much Federal funding has the
Arabella Advisors network received?
Mr. Walter. Surprisingly, there's not a large quantity of
that, although Mr. O'Neil's written testimony documents some of
the examples to the New Venture Fund and elsewhere.
Mr. Moore. What were the initiatives and policies? Do any
of you know what the Arabella Advisors network were pushing
the--are you familiar with those?
Mr. O'Neil. Oh, they run the gamut on the Left. I focused
on the New Venture Fund for the research for this, but they
funded the Center for American Progress which pushes climate
alarmism, critical race theory, and focus on gender ideology.
They funded the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National
Wildlife Federation, as I mentioned, the Sierra Club, the Human
Rights Campaign, and one of the biggest ones for me is the
Southern Poverty Law Center, which--
Mr. Moore. In Alabama. I'm very familiar with it.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes.
Mr. Moore. Yes. Mr. Gonzalez, how did the Biden-Harris
Administration cut a deal with the far Left organizations to
swiftly obtain and hold radio stations in the U.S.?
Mr. Gonzalez. Are you talking about the radio stations that
were bought with money that George Soros facilitated that--the
Spanish language radio stations in 2023, I believe. Are you
talking about those?
Mr. Moore. Yes.
Mr. Gonzalez. Or are you talking about the ones last year?
Because he also made a purchase.
Mr. Moore. I wasn't aware. Just, in general, buying up the
radio stations for me is a concern, and how do we go through
that process? How do they fund it? What was the purpose behind
it? Do we know?
Mr. Gonzalez. Well, the FCC Brendan Carr--which is now the
Chair of the FCC--said that approval of that purchase was fast-
tracked and it shouldn't have been because a big component of
the funds came from overseas and that requires more time to
look into them. I believe that he's going--now that he's the
Chair, I believe he's going back and looking into this. I
forgot the name of the radio station consortium, but it's going
to come to me in a minute.
Mr. Moore. What process do you think should have been
followed? What process--to take more time?
Mr. Gonzalez. Well, the process--yes. Take more time.
That's what Brendan Carr complained about, that the time that
is supposed to take in looking into who these donor--not
donors, but who these funds are.
Mr. Moore. Especially with foreign money being involved,
right?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, because it was foreign money. That's the
thing.
Mr. Moore. Sir, what is the effect of the radio
acquisition? What do you think the endgame is from the Left?
Mr. Gonzalez. Well, it has become very clear over the years
that they are very bad at talk radio, and this is--the Left
wants to control the narrative just like they have been able to
control a lot of the media, just not talk radio because it's
just unentertaining. They've been trying to catch up to that
for a very long time.
Mr. Moore. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm out of time. I will
yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. I thank the gentleman. I will
recognize Mr. Johnson from Georgia.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The Majority's witnesses have repeatedly condemned the
revolving door between what they call Leftist nonprofits and
the Federal Government, but they need to take a long, hard look
in the mirror and talk about what's happening with MAGA,
billionaire, corrupt, corporate, conservative front groups such
as The Heritage Foundation, a giant recipient of dark money.
That happens to be your employer, Mr. Gonzalez, correct?
Mr. Gonzalez. I certainly take issue with the premise that
we receive dark money.
Mr. Johnson. You work for The Heritage Foundation, correct?
Yes or no?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. I'm very proud--
Mr. Johnson. You've gotten a lot of dark money from Charles
Koch, right?
Mr. Gonzalez. No, actually. We don't.
Mr. Johnson. Well, let me ask you this.
Mr. Gonzalez. Very little.
Mr. Johnson. Let me ask you this: Who is the biggest dark
money guy out there between Charles Koch, who is worth $71.4
billion, and George Soros, who is only worth a measly $7.2
billion? Who is the biggest dark money guy out there between
those two?
Mr. Gonzalez. I don't know. Actually, I want to thank you
for letting us sit down at the beginning.
Mr. Johnson. You can't say that it's Charles Koch?
Mr. Gonzalez. First, you are aware that Charles Koch is a
Libertarian and we're not Libertarian, right?
Mr. Johnson. Let me just move on, sir.
Ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election, a network of
Right-wing, dark money groups, led by The Heritage Foundation,
launched the notorious and infamous Project 2025, a Federal
policy agenda for the second Trump Administration that provides
a blueprint for the radical and unconstitutional empowerment of
the executive branch to shutter bureaus and offices, overturn
regulations, and replace thousands of public sector employees
with political cronies and yes-men, all in the services of a
Right-wing, radical, and corrupt corporate agenda. As of March
2024, Project 2025 advisory groups have received more than $55
million from donor networks led by Leonard Leo and Charles
Koch.
Now, during the campaign, which billionaire Elon Musk, by
the way, purchased with about $275 million in dark money--
Donald Trump swore he had nothing to do with Project 2025, but
just like he lied about releasing the Epstein files, he also
lied about his plan to implement Project 2025. Isn't that
right, Mr. Walter? Didn't he lie? You don't know? You won't
say? Are you afraid?
Mr. Walter. I'm quite awake. I don't have any--
Mr. Johnson. What about you, Mr. O'Neil? Did he lie?
Mr. O'Neil. No. He said he didn't read it. He told the
truth. He told the truth. He said he didn't read it.
Mr. Johnson. Trump didn't lie when he said he was going to
release the Epstein files?
Mr. O'Neil. He said he didn't read Project 2025.
Mr. Johnson. Didn't he say he was going to release the
Epstein files?
Mr. O'Neil. I mean--
Mr. Johnson. Let me move on. Since the inauguration--
Mr. O'Neil. I will allow it.
Mr. Johnson. Since the inauguration, the Trump
Administration officials have worked tirelessly to implement
Project 2025 and even has the author of Project 2025 as the
Office of Management and Budget director, Russell Vought.
He used to be the Vice President of Heritage Action, right,
Mr. Gonzalez?
Mr. Gonzalez. I believe he had a position at--
Mr. Johnson. Big dark money guy used to be head of your
operation, and now he is in the revolving door with the second
Trump Administration.
Mr. Gonzalez, you've worked for The Heritage Foundation
since 2009. Did you have any involvement with the creation and
authorship of this infamous document of Project 2025?
Mr. Gonzalez. Oh, yes, sir. I'm proud to say that I wrote
an essay in it.
Mr. Johnson. You're proud of it?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. I worked for every portion of this
project, which we have every four years of an election year.
Mr. Johnson. The American people are not with you on that,
Mr. Gonzalez.
Mr. Gonzalez. I'm just giving you the facts.
Mr. Johnson. I'm going to tell you, in my remaining time
I'm going to sum up the testimony of you three guys, the
Republican witnesses, and to sum it up you are antiracial
justice, you're antigender equity, and you're anti-
environmental protection. With that--
Mr. Gonzalez. Can we repeat our testimony?
Mr. Johnson. I will yield back the remainder of my time.
Mr. Gonzalez. Can we have time to--
Mr. Van Drew. There is no remainder of time. I'm sorry, Mr.
Gonzalez. You're going to get a chance when some other people
ask you questions, you will have an ability to answer, actually
answer the question.
Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I now recognize Dr. Onder from
Missouri.
Mr. Onder. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to all the
witnesses for being here today.
First, Mr. Gonzalez, again, you work for The Heritage
Foundation. Does The Heritage Foundation receive any Federal
Government money?
Mr. Gonzalez. Zero.
Mr. Onder. Any USAID money?
Mr. Gonzalez. Zero.
Mr. Onder. No. OK. Any of these other organizations that
receive--any grants from the Vera Foundation, which does
receive Federal Government money?
Mr. Gonzalez. No.
Mr. Onder. I think my Democratic colleagues missed the
point of today's hearing.
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes.
Mr. Onder. George Soros has every business to spend his own
money however he sees fit, as does Charles Koch, and as does
Elon Musk. The point is we are talking about taxpayer's money
here today. The idea that these Left wing so-called NGOs, I
think one of you said--called them BGOs, basically government
organizations. Was that you, Mr. Walter.
They're basically acting as money laundering operations
from our pockets, my taxpayer's who I represent in Missouri, to
these Leftist causes. That is antithetical to a democratic
republic like we work--we live in. We think we live in.
Mr. Walter, during President Trump's first few weeks in
office DOGE identified Federal funding that was not being used
as Congress intended. Many times, I heard my Democratic
colleagues say, well, it was appropriated, so this NGO or this
government agency has a right to it.
One egregious example was Federal funding of $1.3 million
to the NIH's Institute of Nursing Research which was awarded to
a nonprofit to partner with girl-to-girl to text minors sex
education content, including how to have sex with other minor
girls.
The Girl-to-girl's website encouraged girls not to tell
their parents that they're taking part in this research. The
Federal Government--the Federal Government should not be in
this business of doing research that parents would disapprove.
Going forward, we need to ensure that agencies are
complying with existing transparency requirements.
Now, this NIH grant was identified through USAspending.gov,
but most of DOGE's work was uncovering grant misuse that was
not publicly reported. USAspending.gov was created by Congress
through the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act
of 2006, which required OMB and treasury to coordinate with
Federal agencies to publicly post Federal awards on a publicly
searchable website. A 2023 GAO report found that 49 of 52
Federal agencies didn't report data to USAspending.gov, and
some of the agencies reported COVID spending that didn't match
their annual financial reports.
Mr. Walter, would you say that the current version of
USAspending.gov is compliant with this law?
Mr. Walter. No. As you point out, there seems to be
evidence that it hasn't. Plus, there's a huge thing that needs
to be done, the grants are not listed by the grantee's EIN
number, their tax ID number, which would make it enormously
simpler to find what you're looking for.
Mr. Onder. Right. You mentioned your website,
DOGEfiles.org, I imagine it's fair for me to say that there are
things in DOGEfiles.org that I couldn't find on USA--
Mr. Walter. Well, we used USAspending.gov to get it, but,
believe me, it's a struggle to--
Mr. Onder. It was difficult.
Mr. Walter. It needs to be much better.
Mr. Onder. It was not easy. OK. What can we do in this
Committee to ensure that agencies under our jurisdiction are
complying with existing transparency requirements?
Mr. Walter. Well, I'm not aware of any accountability.
Right. If I'm an agency and I don't do what I'm supposed to,
who cares, what happens, if anybody even finds it out.
Mr. Onder. OK. How can we increase transparency and account
for subawards and subcontracts? Is that part of the problem,
that it goes to--there's a contract, but then, Mr. O'Neil maybe
alluded to some of this, and then it goes to a contractor who
then awards it to another subcontractor and the money cannot be
followed.
Mr. Walter. Yes. There's a little bit of that sort of
information on USAspending.org, but absolutely not all of it.
Some of the most notorious things in the last administration
were some of the green slush funds that got created in the
billions.
Mr. Onder. Very good. OK. Thank you very much for your
testimony. I yield back.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Dr. Onder. I now recognize the
Ranking Member of the whole Committee, Mr. Raskin.
Mr. Raskin. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Ambassador C.deBaca, is
there anything illegal about not-for-profit spending money on a
priority that the government agency or department also has?
I'll give you an example. The Gates Foundation has spent $30
billion to advance vaccines, both research and spreading
vaccines around the world. The USAID spent $3 billion over the
last decade on that.
Is that either illegal or unusual that you would have a
convergence of the not-for-profit philanthropic sector with a
governmental priority?
Mr. C.deBaca. It is not illegal. In fact, it is a best
practice so that you can extend both the governmental and the
philanthropic--
Mr. Raskin. Presumably we can expect the same thing under
R.F. Kennedy, Jr., who opposes vaccines, he opposes vaccine
research, he wants to stop vaccine programs, and presumably
he's going to--all the same people that he just packed the
Advisory Committee with will be getting grants to go and try to
stop vaccine research. As our colleagues constantly say,
elections count, elections matter, and RFK, Jr., is in there.
There's not much we can do about it. We can have a hearing
lamenting it and bewildering it. I would much rather have money
going into promoting vaccine research and distribution than
opposing it, but that's the difference between our two parties.
Is there anything illegal about people in not-for-profits
going to work in the Federal Government in a new
administration?
Mr. C.deBaca. No, sir.
Mr. Raskin. In fact, a great example of that is this guy Ed
Martin who was for a while the acting U.S. Attorney of the
District of Columbia, they were forced to withdraw his
nomination when it turned out that his close friend is a Neo-
Nazi who dresses up like Adolf Hitler and they just switched
over to appointing him to a nonconfirmable position in the
Department of Justice, believe it or not, running the task
force on weaponization.
In any event, he ran something called the Patriot Freedom
Project, which is a 501(c)(3), not-for-profit organization,
that supported January 6th defendants and their families. More
than 100 criminal defendants, including people who violently
assaulted our police officers, wounding them, injuring them,
disfiguring them, permanently disabling them, and then he went
into the government. He's got close ties, in fact, he dismissed
some of the prosecutions against these people, and they have
fired lots of January 6th prosecutors. That looks like a really
tight little revolving door channel that's not just him. In
fact, they hired an actual January 6th insurrectionist who was
convicted of crimes to go work for him at that same entity in
the Department of Justice.
As much as we might hate it, as much as we might think the
American people should know about it, that the criminals in
this soft-on-crime administration are taking over at the
Department of Justice, it's hard to say that there's anything
illegal about it, right?
If somebody goes from working at the Gates Foundation, or
the Open Society Institute at the State Department, is there
anything illegal or criminal about that? Is there anything that
should cause public alarm in the way these gentlemen are trying
to stimulate it?
Mr. C.deBaca. No, sir.
Mr. Raskin. Well, in fact, is there anything illegal about
the government, if it's spending funds appropriately, giving to
organizations that other people disagree with? I think some of
the witnesses were saying the vast majority of the people
disagree with it, which, of course, our colleagues would answer
by saying, that's what elections are for, in other words, we've
elected a particular government.
Now, I'll give you an example of that. I just looked it up.
The $434 million has gone in the first Trump Administration,
and I'm sure more will flow now, to crisis pregnancy centers.
OK. Who from our perspective lure young people in and give them
distorted or tilted information about abortion. I'm sure that's
what they say about Planned Parenthood. OK. That's politics.
People have different perspectives on things.
Hundreds of millions, presumably billions of dollars are
going to go to the crisis pregnancy centers, which a lot of
people think are completely objectionable. Is that illegal
because some other people disagree with it.
Mr. C.deBaca. It is not.
Mr. Raskin. It is not illegal. It's not criminal. This
hearing is just weird. It's just people getting up and
complaining about things that happened under an administration
they disagree with when the administration they agree with is
doing the exact same thing on a mirror image basis.
There's something that everybody here, at least I used to
think, agreed with, which is let's release the Epstein files.
That guy is a child sex offender who was convicted of it and
then took his life before the larger trial could take place.
His associate, Ms. Maxwell, is in jail for 20 years. The whole
country is saying to release the files. That's what Donald
Trump said, that's what JD Vance said, that's what the Attorney
General said, and that's what the FBI Director said. Now,
suddenly they want to sweep the whole thing under the rug.
Why don't we have a real hearing with real government
officials talking about the government and talking about a real
investigation with the real problem, which is the nationwide
crisis in the sexual abuse of children and human trafficking.
Why don't we do that? I yield back to you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Van Drew. The Ranking Member yields back. With that I
believe that, Mr. Schmidt, you're going to yield your time; is
that correct?
Mr. Schmidt. Yes.
Mr. Van Drew. OK. Mr. Schmidt is going to yield his time to
Mr. Kiley, who's not going to speak quite yet because Mr. Gill
is in front of you, but I wanted to make that note. OK. Thank
you, Mr. Schmidt.
With that, Mr. Gill is next in line from the great State of
Texas.
Mr. Gill. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for putting this
hearing together here and helping us continue to identify
waste, fraud, and abuse that we can cut out of our Federal
budget, particularly abuse that is pushing Left-wing pet
projects.
Before I jump into that I would like to address something
that one of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle
mentioned earlier about gender equity. I find it particularly
amusing that the party who doesn't know how many genders there
are to begin with has the gall to lecture us about gender
equity.
If we want to talk about gender equity, let's talk about
it. Which party believes that men should be using women's
bathrooms? It's not this side of the aisle. It's the Democrat
party. Which party believes that men should be playing in
women's sports? It's not this side of the aisle. It's the
Democrat party. Which party believes that our tax dollars
should fund transgender surgeries for minors? It's not this
side of the aisle. It's that side of the aisle. Those are
things that they don't like to talk about because they know how
widely unpopular they are with the American people. That is the
reality, and that's what we are up against right now is a
Democrat party that is pushing some of the most wild and
perverse social programs on the American people.
With that said, I would like to jump into the point of this
hearing, which is not gender equity. It's to talk about other
Left-wing projects.
Mr. Gonzalez, thank you for being here, and thank you for
taking the time. During President Biden's tenure, USAID, under
Samantha Power, took a particular interest in Hungary; is that
right?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, that's right, Congressman.
Mr. Gill. Would you say that USAID's involvement in that
country, including funding media organizations, was
nonpartisan, or do you think that was used to push a particular
agenda?
Mr. Gonzalez. Oh, it was meant to do regime change in a
NATO ally, and a very key NATO ally, that was unconscionable.
Mr. Gill. Would you say that Hungary is an important NATO
ally in central and Eastern Europe?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. It borders Ukraine. I believe, yes, it
borders Serbia as well. Yes, this was something that we should
never be doing this in friendly countries to begin with. The
fact that Samantha Power did this and met with leaders of the
opposition before she met with government administrators, who
she scolded, and our Ambassador--well, I don't want to go into
it because I know you have more questions, but--
Mr. Gill. Well, that's where I'm going with this. Why do
you think that the Biden Administration was so interested in
using our tax dollars to funnel monetary support for domestic
political opposition in an allied Nation to harm a
democratically elected government?
Mr. Gonzalez. For the same reason it did it in Guatemala
and Macedonia with equally pro U.S. leaders. It just didn't
like conservative governments that were trying to do things
like fighting, fighting for life, fighting for demographic
growth in all these countries, disagreed with the foreign
policy. All these leaders were also very pro-Israel, pro-
Taiwan, in the case of Guatemala. It was just the Biden
Administration disagreed with the politics of these countries,
even though it went against U.S. interests to disagree with
these governments.
Mr. Gill. Right. That's where I was going as well. Do you
think that any of Hungary's domestic policies in question here,
whether it's related to woke ideology, or identity politics, or
migration, have any bearing on America's national security
interests in the region?
Mr. Gonzalez. It was completely the opposite. It played
exactly into Vladimir Putin's hands. It made pro-American
Hungarians and Guatemalans or Macedonians question the United
States and think of alternatives. It was very misguided.
Mr. Gill. Shifting focus to the United States, do you think
that there are similar Left wing virtually money laundering
operations here that are aimed at influencing American
politics, particularly through the media?
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes. Mr. Soros said very early on, I believe
in the mid-1990s, that he wanted to turn his attention inward
toward the United States. An American is free to do so, as I
said in my testimony. I'm also free to criticize him. I
disagree with him about the positions he takes. As I said, he's
free to do that with his money. I'm free to criticize.
Mr. Gill. Right. We can also look to taxpayer-funded
propaganda outlets like NPR and PBS as well.
Mr. Gonzalez. I believe that's playing out today in the
Senate, yes.
Mr. Gill. Thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Gill. I now recognize Ms.
Crockett, the Ranking Member.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. Listen, I have heard some
interesting things. I have heard about fighting for life. Mr.
DeBaca, I am just--Ambassador C.deBaca, I am curious, does it
look like you're fighting for life when you cut 17 million
people off of their healthcare?
Mr. C.deBaca. It does not.
Ms. Crockett. Does it look like you're fighting for life
when you're kicking people, in this country, I want to be
clear, we're talking about the United States, in this country,
off food assistance?
Mr. C.deBaca. No, ma'am.
Ms. Crockett. OK. All right. Well, this hearing is
supposedly is being about radical Leftist and whatnot. I do
have some questions about that, but before I get there, I am
tripping about how much we are loving on Viktor Orban here in
the United States. Well, and I shouldn't say we. Them. How much
they are loving on Viktor Orban.
I have an interesting article that I would like to enter
into the record as a UC.
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Thank you.
Mr. Van Drew. Thanks for the tap.
Ms. Crockett. ``Hungary's Orban Demonstrate How to
Dismantle Democracy.'' Some of the interesting things that are
said in here, first, Trump went further in two months than
Orban could in 15 years. This year is faced with an
increasingly unified opposition in parliament that is rallied
behind a charismatic lawyer and politician, Orban's attacks on
media, civil society, and freedom of assembly--
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. Have gained momentum. This is part of my
words. My time was still going. In addition to that, there is
mention that Orban focused on ridding Hungary of any
institution capable of checking his power. Sounds something
like Donald Trump; does it not?
Mr. C.deBaca. I wouldn't necessarily speculate on what the
two Presidents are doing.
Ms. Crockett. OK. Don't speculate. I'm going to tell you,
sounds like Donald Trump.
Now, while we are talking about taxpayer dollars, let me
tell you, and, Donald Trump agreed with me at some point in
time about this particular one, I have another UC, ``Elon Musk
gets $8 million a day from taxpayers.''
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much.
Listen, if we want to start talking about who's donating to
who and who's getting money, last time I checked, Elon Musk did
close to $300 million to get him into office, and it seems like
there was a direct payment right back to him. I get that it's
not a not-for-profit, but at the same time it is Federal
dollars.
Earlier someone mentioned these hellholes talking about the
cities. Right. Talking about cities being hellholes. I just
want to point to Los Angeles. I'm sure that's one of the cities
they were referring to when they said that. Los Angeles
contributes almost $20 billion in taxes. That's more than all
States in this country, except for four.
If we are going to push any ideologies, it seems like LA
should have an outsized interest in the ideology because it
seems like they actually contribute more money than all these
other States, especially these Red States, to be clear.
In fact, I have another UC.
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. All right. ``Blue States are bailing out Red
States.'' I have another UC.
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. ``Massachusetts sends more funding to the
feds than any other State.'' It seems like Blue States are
constantly putting Red States on life support, yet we got these
little Red States that aren't contributing nothing, but they
are definitely taking up a lot of money.
It is interesting because the Governor in California, I
don't know if you caught this, but Governor Newsom was talking
about just holding onto his dollars because California is what
they call a donor State, meaning, that they actually contribute
more than they take from the Federal Government.
Then, you can go down South to States like Louisiana who
are broke and so they need California to pay in. It is so
interesting that we are so concerned about whether or not we
are pushing certain ideologies, but let me talk about some of
these. I've got a few questions. We're going to play a game
called radical or restorative. Radical or restorative, a
nonprofit that provides shelter and legal aid to human
trafficking survivors?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. A DOJ funded program that mentors at-risk
youth to prevent gang violence?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. A grant-funded organization that helps women
fleeing domestic abuse with housing and trauma support?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. A USAID program that works to shut down scam
compounds trafficking people in southeast Asia?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. A faith-based nonprofit helping migrant
children reunite safely with family?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. A community group receiving DOJ funds to
reduce gun violence in cities?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. The final one is a global initiative that
prevents trafficking and keeps people from being forced into
labor or sold into exploitation?
Mr. C.deBaca. Restorative.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much, Mr. Ambassador.
What's shocking is some of these programs are the very ones
that Trump and my Republican colleagues are working to shut
down, if we really want to look at who is doing the work to
help us.
As we have just talked about some sex trafficking, I'm
still trying to understand, if you have anything that you would
like to contribute, about the Epstein files that they
absolutely refuse to release.
Mr. C.deBaca. Ma'am, it would be very helpful for the
American public to be able to see the results that have
evidently been kept in whatever that file is. There's been many
years in which folks have investigated Mr. Epstein and those
around him. He has gone--he went to jail once, he was about to
go to jail again before he died, and his compatriot is
currently in prison. Those facts need to be known.
Ms. Crockett. Thank you so much. I will yield.
Mr. Van Drew. The Ranking Member yields back. Thank you. I
now recognize the Chair of the Committee of the whole, Mr.
Jordan.
Chair Jordan. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. O'Neil, who is the
Southern Poverty Law Center.
Mr. O'Neil. The Southern Poverty Law Center is a far-Left
radical activist group that routinely smears conservative and
Christian organizations putting them on a map with the Ku Klux
Klan.
Chair Jordan. First, does the Southern Poverty Law Center
partner with the Open Society Foundation.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes. The Southern Poverty Law Center received
$75,000 from foundation to promote Open Society.
Chair Jordan. The Open Society Foundation gets money from
the American taxpayer; is that right?
Mr. O'Neil. No. The Open Society Foundation does not. There
was an arm of the Open Society Foundation that is now closed
that received a large number--
Chair Jordan. It did.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes.
Chair Jordan. It did get it. OK. As you pointed out, the
Southern Poverty Law Center labels a lot of conservative groups
as hate groups.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes, including Focus on the Family this year.
Chair Jordan. Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending
Freedom, Family Research and Counseling for Immigration
Studies, and Moms for Liberty. Moms are now a hate group.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes. They put Moms for Liberty on there. They
actually said that they compared them to the Uptown Klan of the
1950s.
Chair Jordan. OK. You know what's interesting, I found
this, we made an issue of this, and thank goodness it stopped
with this--with our new Justice Department, but in the old
Justice Department under Mr. Biden it was this, you may
remember, this memorandum put out by the Richmond FBI field
office. Do you remember this, Mr. O'Neil.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes.
Chair Jordan. Do you know when they talked about
traditional Catholics were extremists, do you know who they
cited in the footnote in this--I got the actual FBI memorandum.
Do you know who they cited in that memorandum.
Mr. O'Neil. The Southern Poverty Law Center.
Chair Jordan. The Southern Poverty Law Center. Go figure.
OK, how about this, who's the Tides Foundation.
Mr. O'Neil. They are there oldest dark money passthrough
organization. They pioneered the process that now Arabella
Advisors has perfected.
Chair Jordan. In your testimony, I'm looking at it, you
said there's various--``the Service Employee's International
Union gave money to a group that then gave money to the Tides
Foundation''; is that true?
Mr. O'Neil. No. The SEIU gave directly to--
Chair Jordan. Oh, they gave directly.
Mr. O'Neil. The Tides Efficacy and the Tides Foundation,
yes.
Chair Jordan. Also, in your testimony you point out that
the Tides Foundation not only got money from Left-wing union
groups, but they also got money directly from the taxpayers
through USAID; is that right.
Mr. O'Neil. Correct. It was $27 million.
Chair Jordan. Twenty-seven million.
Mr. O'Neil. It was awarded. Not all those grants were
fulfilled.
Chair Jordan. What is the Tides Foundation up to? What kind
of crazy things are they doing with taxpayer money and
shuffling employee union money, what are they doing?
Mr. O'Neil. Bankrolling the Southern Poverty Law Center,
for one. They also have an in-house nonprofit called Palestine
Legal.
Chair Jordan. The Tides Foundation gets a boatload of
taxpayer money, people I get the privilege of representing from
the 4th District of Ohio, some of their money is going to the
Tides Foundation that is then going to the Southern Poverty Law
Center where they can label moms as terrorists and say that if
you're a Catholic you're an extremist, that all happens with
American tax dollars; is that right?
Mr. O'Neil. We don't have concrete proof of the fact of the
Tides Center receiving money that they then gave to the
Southern Poverty Law Center.
Chair Jordan. Money is tangible. We're not--
Mr. O'Neil. Your overall point is 100 percent.
Chair Jordan. OK. That's all happening here in the United
States. It's even worse. Right. Because the Tides Foundation
also gets involved, Mr. Gonzalez was pointing to this, gets
involved overseas as well. One of the things we know they're
doing, correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. O'Neil, that we know
they're doing is they're taking some of that money to undermine
our allies and friends like Prime Minister Netanyahu in the
State of Israel; is that right?
Mr. O'Neil. Well, one of the big things they have is an in-
house nonprofit representing anti-Israel rioters on college
campuses called Palestine Legal, so, yes.
Chair Jordan. They're doing it here and there. Undermining
Israel here and there, antisemitic activity here on our
campuses, all with American tax money. Wow.
Mr. O'Neil. Yes.
Chair Jordan. The other side says, again, Mr. Van Drew
shouldn't be having this hearing. Are you kidding me? American
tax dollars used to say moms are terrorists, we're going to go
after prolife Catholics, and our best friend internationally,
our best ally, the State of Israel, we're going to undermine
their government while we're at it. Such a deal for the
taxpayers, huh.
Mr. O'Neil. On the point from Ranking Member Raskin, he
noted that George Soros does not have power. Alex Soros was
asked if he would run for office, and he said that he would not
because he believes that as head of the Open Society
Foundations, he has more power than he ever would if he had any
office in the land.
Chair Jordan. Well, based on what we just described, it
sure looks like he got a lot of influence. All we're saying is
maybe we shouldn't send American tax dollars to these
organizations that are undermining American taxpayers. Wow.
Somehow, we're not supposed to have this hearing. I yield back.
Mr. Raskin. Will the gentleman yield just quickly.
Chair Jordan. You get the last word--
Mr. Raskin. All I want to say is that I didn't say he
didn't have power. I said, ``he did not have official
governmental power.'' Thank you.
Ms. Crockett. I have a UC.
Mr. Van Drew. The gentleman yields back. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. This is from The Pennsylvania Independent,
``Convicted Sex Offender Serves As Faith Leader of Philly `Moms
for Liberty' Chapter.''
Mr. Van Drew. We'll now recognize Mr. Kiley.
Mr. Kiley. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do want to briefly
address a comment that the Ranking Member, the representative
from Texas made about my State, California, claiming that our
State gives disproportionately to the Federal Government and is
some sort of donor State. Actually, the State of California
doesn't give nothing to the Federal Government. Individuals and
businesses do pay taxes. Governor Newsom's suggestion that we
should withhold those taxes, as our Treasury Secretary has
pointed out, is threatening to commit the felony of criminal
tax evasion.
As to this notion that Los Angeles is somehow a model of
good governance, just today Los Angeles came out with its new
homelessness numbers. The current count is 72,308. The Police
Chief in LA has formally advised people not to wear jewelry
when they go outside because they will get mugged. The city
just announced 614 layoffs because the finances are such a
mess. This is to say nothing of the recent riots and the
catastrophic wildfires that came after the Mayor defunded the
fire department.
On to the topic of today's hearing. It's bad enough that we
have all this funding going toward NGOs that then support
radical ideological causes, sort of the logical next step that
we've seen is funding organizations that then directly commit
or facilitate criminal activity. This is exactly what we saw
with respect to the recent riots in Los Angeles where you had a
group known as CHIRLA, the Center for Humane Immigration Rights
Los Angeles, that played a central role in organizing the
riots.
They made use of a hotline through Signal where they would
inform rioters at any given moment where ICE personnel could be
found so those individuals could then converge, they could
disrupt their operations, they could use commercial dumpsters
as battering rams, they could assault officers, and so forth.
CHIRLA, by the way, has been implicated in other ways in
all the recent chaos that we've seen. For example, the incident
where tire spikes were used to disable the vehicles of border
patrol, the individuals engaging in these crimes were carrying
the tire spikes in bags with CHIRLA's name on them.
To top it all off, Karen Bass' recent proposal to give cash
cards to illegal immigrants supposedly affected by ICE
operations are being distributed to them by, you guessed it,
CHIRLA.
I have introduced a bill, The No Tax Dollars For Riots Act,
which will make sure that organizations like this do not
continue to get funding. Indeed, that they cannot claim tax
exempt status. President Trump has enthusiastically endorsed
that bill and said it should be past immediately.
On top of that, this Committee, the House Judiciary
Committee, has opened an investigation into CHIRLA's use of the
Federal funding that it received during the Biden
Administration. It also received $34 million from California,
accounting for the vast majority of its revenue. It's
effectively a subsidiary of the State, or a subsidiary of the
sanctuary State, if you will.
With all that being said, Mr. O'Neil, or if Mr. Gonzalez,
or other witnesses would like to chime in on this, how
problematic is this that we now have these public taxpayer
funds being used to directly facilitate criminal activity?
Mr. O'Neil. Extremely.
Mr. Gonzalez. Thank you for your question. Yes, in fact, a
lot of the riots we have seen on our streets, the college
encampments, all these things are paid for--CHIRLA, by the way,
received $30 million, if I'm working from memory.
Mr. Kiley. The $34 million most recently from the State.
Mr. Gonzalez. Yes, most recently, from the taxpayer, and
thank you for making that distinction between the State of
California and California's hardput taxpayers. CHIRLA just
raked in government money and was one of the organizers of the
riots we saw in Los Angeles.
Everywhere we've seen, you talked about the Tides
Foundation, in New York, the Answer Coalition, Students for
Justice in Palestine, all of these groups have either received
funding from these dark money people or are fiscal--or these
dark money senders are fiscal sponsors of them.
It is very concerning, even in cases where, and I think in
these cases that I'm talking about crimes have been committed,
but even in cases where there's no--it's not illegal or
criminal, there's such a thing as unseemly and disturbing, and
we should be able to talk about these things.
Mr. Kiley. Absolutely. There's certainly a whole range of
conduct that is objectionable, but it's particularly
objectionable where the funds are used in a way that actually
violates other laws that we have in place.
Thank you very much to my colleague from Kansas, Mr.
Schmidt, for yielding the time. I yield the remainder of my
time to the Chair.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Kiley. I recognize myself for
five minutes. I just don't know where to begin. It was
interesting all the back and forth. I do have to say this, and
it's partially complimentary, and it's just an observation, I
do have to admit, my friends to the left of me, both
geographically and, also, politically, they're good. They're
really good at it. Mr. Raskin--both of you are--all of you are,
actually, Mr. Raskin is particularly good at conflating and
blurring.
He mentioned immigration. I always bring this up through
other hearings as well, there is a difference between legal and
illegal immigration. There's a difference. Nobody on this side
has any problem with legal immigration. That's what makes
America.
Let's be clear about it. Illegal immigration, and in some
cases where we had people on the terror watch list that were in
this country, and people that were convicted or indicted for
crimes either in their country of origin or here, yes, we're
against that. Absolutely. We would all say it proudly, we're
against it.
Also, Mr. Raskin and Ms. Crockett as well, had brought up
that there's nothing illegal. I agree. The purpose of the
hearing is this wasn't talking about the legality. We don't
know, maybe there is, but we don't know of illegal activity.
The point is it's distasteful. It's disturbing. It's
disgusting. If the American public had to sit through this
today, and other hearings we've had, they would be very deeply
upset at where their money is going.
Mr. Raskin called this a loser hearing. You know who's
losing, the taxpayers, the union members when their money gets
drained away to go for these things that the vast majority of
them do not believe in.
Mr. Soros is good at this. That's why we're doing this.
We're not doing--we didn't say we should take him to jail
tomorrow, but he's good at it. He helps to establish these
NGOs, these not-for-profits, and then they make sure that
millions and millions of dollars flow to them from the
taxpayer. It's a pretty ingenious idea. He's making money on
his investment, and we think it's wrong, and we don't think it
should happen.
I just wanted to clear the air on that, but these guys are
good.
Ms. Crockett. Do you yield?
Mr. Van Drew. No. I would, and normally, we get along, I
try to, but, Mr. Walter, can you explain why Soros' model is
far more dangerous to public policy and democratic
accountability than people realize?
Mr. Walter. Certainly. By the way, I'm happy to give the
Ranking Member an example of illegality. There are documents
from Soros' own 501(c)(3) nonprofits that show that money was
being spent to influence elections to the European parliament,
and, of course, that's a violation of 501(c)(3) limitations on
political activity. I would be happy to provide the documents
to you if you would like.
Mr. Raskin. Were they charged with that?
Mr. Walter. Excuse me?
Mr. Raskin. Were they charged? Were there criminal charges
brought?
Mr. Walter. Sadly, no, nor was there ever a hearing in
Congress about it. There's also the question of--my next report
on Mr. Soros is going to show over $80 million going to
nonprofits that support terrorism. Again, that is debatably not
kosher under 501(c)(3) laws.
The way that the network operates is you have, in the case
of Soros, dozens, even hundreds of things. There's an Open
Society Macedonia, an Open Society Prague, and on and on. Many
of these entities get Federal tax dollars, as well as Mr.
Soros' private monies.
As Mr. Gonzalez was explaining, they are willing to go up
to and include regime change, as well as trying to change who's
elected of the European--
Mr. Van Drew. Mr. Walter, and I assume that's why you would
think this is dangerous; am I right, Mr. Walter?
Mr. Walter. Yes.
Mr. Van Drew. This is a dangerous situation. You bring a
good point, some of it very well may be illegal, but at the
very very least it's disturbing, distasteful, of concern, and
that's why we're having the hearing. The American people, I
know and I wish, millions are watching this, quite frankly,
they're not, deserve to know about this disturbing information.
That's the point of this.
Mr. Walter. One other quick thing, too.
Mr. Van Drew. Please, quickly because I have other
questions.
Mr. Walter. Ambassador C.deBaca has been a hero in fighting
human trafficking. Soros on the other hand is one of the
greatest pushers of decriminalizing prostitution throughout the
entire world, which is one of the engines of human trafficking.
There is a journal article on precisely that.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you, Mr. Walter.
To all of you, for each of you, very briefly, is there one
reform Congress should pursue to stop the highjacking of
Federal dollars for activism that is this extreme? Like in 10
seconds each. We'll start with you, Mr. Walter. One reform,
what is it?
Mr. Walter. Forcing greater transparency on where the
Federal tax dollars go, including the grantees of the grantees.
Mr. Van Drew. I agree. Mr. Gonzalez.
Mr. Gonzalez. Do a thorough audit of what these programs
are, and who the main implementer is in each country. This is
really necessary.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. Mr. O'Neil.
Mr. O'Neil. Stop funding groups that also lobby the Federal
Government.
Mr. Van Drew. Thank you. Ambassador C.deBaca.
Mr. C.deBaca. Restore USAID so that it can actually do
these grants and protect the integrity of these grants and
release the files about Jeffrey Epstein.
Mr. Van Drew. I don't have time. My time is up. I would
debate that with you for a long period of time, sir.
With that, that concludes today's hearing.
Ms. Crockett. I've got a UC.
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
Ms. Crockett. OK. ``IRS says churches can now endorse
political candidates.'' For the record, churches are 501s most
of the time.
Mr. Van Drew. I'm not going to comment. I have feelings on
that, too.
Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chair, I've got one, too, if that's all
right.
Mr. Van Drew. Yes, Ranking Member.
Mr. Raskin. This is, ``Publix heiress-backed January 6
group spent $180,000 on the rally.''
Mr. Van Drew. Without objection.
That concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses
appearing before this Subcommittee today. We really do mean it,
time is treasure. We appreciate it.
Without objection, all the Members will have five
legislative days to submit additional written questions for the
witnesses, or additional materials for the record.
Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:40 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
All materials submitted for the record by Members of the
Subcommittee on Oversight can be found at: https://
docs.house.gov/Committee/Calendar/ByEvent.aspx?EventID=118494.
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