[Senate Hearing 119-41]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 119-41
ELIMINATING WASTE BY THE FOREIGN AID
BUREAUCRACY
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON
HOMELAND SECURITY AND
GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINETEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 13, 2025
__________
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.govinfo.gov
Printed for the use of the
Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
[GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
59-998 PDF WASHINGTON : 2025
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY AND GOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS
RAND PAUL, Kentucky, Chairman
RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin GARY C. PETERS, Michigan
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma MARGARET WOOD HASSAN, New
RICK SCOTT, Florida Hampshire
JOSH HAWLEY, Missouri RICHARD BLUMENTHAL, Connecticut
BERNIE MORENO, Ohio JOHN FETTERMAN, Pennsylvania
JONI ERNST, Iowa ANDY KIM, New Jersey
TIM SCOTT, Florida RUBEN GALLEGO, Arizona
ELISSA SLOTKIN, Michigan
William E. Henderson III, Staff Director
Christina N. Salazar, Chief Counsel
Andrew J. Hopkins, Counsel
Megan M. Krynen, Professional Staff Member
Ryan Arient, Professional Staff Member
David M. Weinberg, Minority Staff Director
Christopher J. Mulkins, Minority Director of Homeland Security
Laura W. Kilbride, Chief Clerk
Ashley A. Gonzalez, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
------
Opening statements:
Page
Senator Paul................................................. 1
Senator Peters............................................... 3
Senator Johnson.............................................. 10
Senator Lankford............................................. 14
Senator Blumenthal........................................... 16
Senator Hassan............................................... 19
Senator Scott................................................ 20
Senator Kim.................................................. 23
Senator Ernst................................................ 29
Prepared statements:
Senator Paul................................................. 35
Senator Peters............................................... 44
WITNESSES
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2025
Michael Shellenberger, Founder, Public News...................... 6
William Ruger, President, American Institute for Economic
Research....................................................... 8
Alphabetical List of Witnesses
Ruger, William:
Testimony.................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 67
Shellenberger, Michael:
Testimony.................................................... 6
Prepared statement........................................... 47
APPENDIX
Senator Ernst pictures........................................... 80
Letter to USAID Nov. 2023........................................ 82
Letter to USAID Dec. 2023........................................ 85
USAID Letter Mar 2024............................................ 86
Letter to USAID OIG May 2024..................................... 90
USAID Letter May 2024............................................ 93
Letter to Rubio Feb 2025......................................... 100
Statements submitted for the Record:
Church World Services........................................ 105
National State and Local Organizations....................... 106
RCUSA........................................................ 112
World Relief................................................. 113
USAID OIG Report............................................. 120
Q2IMPACT..................................................... 126
ELIMINATING WASTE BY THE FOREIGN AID BUREAUCRACY
----------
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2025
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in
room SD-342, Russell Dirksen, Senate Office Building, Hon. Rand
Paul, Chair of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Paul [presiding], Johnson, Lankford, Rick
Scott, Hawley, Ernst, Peters, Hassan, Blumenthal, and Kim.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PAUL\1\
Chairman Paul. The Committee will come to order.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Paul appears in the Appendix
on page 35.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Today, we are going to dive into reckless and wasteful
spending of our Federal Government, particularly when it comes
to foreign aid. The United States should not be the sugar daddy
for the entire world, especially not for countries and
organizations who act contrary to our nations' beliefs.
Our country is $36 trillion in debt, yet we continue to
send billions of dollars overseas, often funding projects that
are not just useless but, in many cases, actively harmful.
Taking the path to fiscal responsibility is often a lonely
journey, but thanks to Elon Musk and Department of Government
Efficiency (DOGE), they have brought to light the waste that I
have been highlighting for over the last decade. Every year, I
release my Festivus Report to expose the ridiculous spending of
the Federal Government, and this past year was no exception. I
uncovered over $1 trillion in government waste, with the State
Department and United States Agency for International
Development (USAID) being some of the worst offenders.
Let me give you just a few examples of what these unelected
bureaucrats are spending your hard-earned money on:
$4.8 million went to Ukraine's public affairs office in
Kyiv, to fund social media influencers.
Instead of protecting our own border, $2.1 million was sent
to Paraguay to ``enhance'' their border security.
USAID also funded a group of Ukrainian women-led designers
to travel to the Paris Fashion Show. I do not know about you,
but I would imagine Ukrainian women have more important things
to worry about than appearing in the Paris Fashion Show.
USAID spent $2 million on transgender surgeries, hormone
therapy, and gender-affirming care in Guatemala.
$3 million was spent to promote ``girl-centric climate
action'' in Brazil. I would love to picture what a conversation
about girl-centered climate action looks like. It is like,
``Hey, Barbie. Do you know what girl-centered climate change
is?'' Since when do we believe arguments need to be tailored
for girls to understand? How insulting to women, at-large, that
they think there are special arguments for girls to understand
that are different than boys.
$25,000 to fund a transgender opera in Colombia. Was nobody
in Colombia willing to buy a ticket?
USAID spent $32,000 in Peru to create a comic featuring a
trans hero to address social and mental health issues. What
does that have to do with diplomacy?
$20,000 to fund a diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI)
program for a drag theater in Ecuador.
$20 million was spent to produce a new Sesame Street show
in Iraq.
USAID spent $6 million to promote a project boosting
sustainable tourism in Egypt. I guess the United States is now
the travel agent for the entire world, since they spent $50
million on Tunisia's tourism, even though it is already one of
the most visited countries in Africa.
USAID gave $87.9 million to help Afghans farm, and
incidentally, farm poppy, the plant from which opium is
extracted. As of 2021, Afghanistan supplied 90 percent of the
world's heroin. I thought the saying in the United States was
just say no to drugs. How about we just say no to wasteful
foreign aid?
$70,000 for a live musical event to promote diversity,
equity, inclusion, and accessibility in Ireland.
State Department paid $330,000 to compile a disinformation
index to ``blacklist'' conservative media outlets.
USAID funneled over $54 million to EcoHealth Alliance,
funding the very organization linked to the Wuhan Institute of
Virology (WIV), the likely origin of the Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Disgraceful.
$15 million was awarded to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan
to distribute oral contraceptives and condoms.
There is still a $3 billion fund for Afghan reconstruction
that I have tried to take that money to pay for other things
that the government is spending money on, and yet there has
been resistance by the other side, to deplete that fund and
say, ``We are done funding things in Afghanistan.''
This is just the tip of the iceberg. These are taxpayer
dollars being used to fund ideologically misguided,
ineffective, and unnecessary projects thanks to the blundering
bureaucracy, while our own citizens struggle to put food on the
table.
This is not what our government was designed to do. The
U.S. Government is not a charity, and it should not be doling
out cash to foreign organizations, some of which actively
oppose the United States, with no oversight.
We do not have the money to give. We are borrowing the
money we send. We need to ask a simple question: Why are we
borrowing money to send money overseas?
Even if USAID eliminated the crazy left-wing grants for
trans operations, it still makes no sense to borrow money, to
then turn around and send it overseas. Borrowing money to send
as charity is like the worker who has no money left after
paying for their food, rent, and gas, saying, ``Oh, well I see
this homeless person, I have such great sympathy. I will go to
the bank, and I will borrow $1,000 to give to this person.''
That is what we are doing. We cannot pay for our own, and we
are borrowing the money we send overseas.
That money could be used to pay down our $36 trillion debt
and take care of the American people, the very people who
actually pay these taxes in the first place.
It is time for a real change. America should not continue
to be the world's piggy bank. It is time to end the waste of
foreign aid and end the bureaucracy, and for once do what is
right by the American taxpayer.
With that I recognize the Ranking Member for opening
remarks.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR PETERS\1\
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I am very
discouraged by this hearing and by the witnesses, in
particular, that you have chosen to give a platform today.
Instead of having a serious discussion, I am sure we are going
to hear conspiracy theories, as this Committee holds what
amounts to basically a pep rally in support of President
Trump's illegal power grab.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Senator Peters appears in the
Appendix on page 44.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I certainly agree with this Committee that this Committee
should conduct rigorous oversight of Federal spending,
including wasteful foreign aid. That is certainly what we
should be talking about. We should always be working to sort
out and eliminate waste and fraud in all Federal programs, and,
in fact, this Committee has done that for years, on a
bipartisan basis. It is a big part of what we do every week as
we come together to consider legislation and deal with the
tough issues that we face as a country.
But today's hearing, I am sure we are going to hear many of
our colleagues on the other side of the dais, my Republican
colleagues here, cheer on President Trump and his cronies, like
Elon Musk, in their illegal and unconstitutional efforts to
cutoff foreign aid. It is not only a sham, I think it really
misses the point on what this Administration is really doing,
and how far President Trump will go to hurt American families
so that they can pay for tax cuts for billionaires.
We cannot have a real debate about wasteful spending when
President Trump has empowered an unvetted billionaire--and
let's say it, an unvetted billionaire with massive conflicts of
interest, massive conflicts of interest, hundreds of millions
of dollars of government contracts he receives. I would hope we
will look at those hundreds of millions of dollars of
government contracts from Elon Musk, as he is cutting of
funding to programs that clearly the Administration does not
understand or they may not agree with politically.
Let's be clear. The Constitution does not empower a social
media billionaire with massive conflicts of interest, that has
never been vetted, to decide on how taxpayer dollars are spent.
In fact, the Constitution does not even empower President Trump
to make these decisions. The Constitution gives Congress, and
only Congress, the sole power to decide how taxpayer money is
spent. For the most part, we pass bipartisan laws to determine
how that money should be spent.
But President Trump has directed Elon Musk, and many other
cronies, to ignore Congress, to ignore the Constitution, and
recklessly and illegally cutoff funding that Congress has
passed according to the law. Not only is it illegal, not only
is it unconstitutional, but President Trump's direction to
shutter USAID will have damaging consequences across the globe
and here in the United States.
I would like to enter into the record,\2\ Mr. Chair,
numerous statements from organizations and experts that detail
those consequences.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Statements submitted by Senator Peters appears in the Appendix
on page 105.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chairman Paul. Without objection.
Senator Peters. That is why my Democratic colleagues and I
are most concerned about what agency, what Federal programs is
going to be next, where are the dominoes going to fall after
USAID, what is going to be next on the chopping block. We know
President Trump has already directed his cronies to shut down
the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). Will they halt
Social Security payments that seniors count on next? Will they
stop Medicare reimbursements and prevent seniors from accessing
health care? Will they block disaster aid to States that have
suffered from hurricanes and wildfires?
I will tell you, President Trump and his cronies have
already hinted, on all of those resources that Americans count
on, and more, could be shut down going forward. It is not just
that it is illegal. It is not just that it violates the
separation of powers. The bottom line is that these actions
hurt American families, and it is our job to fight back. That
is why Democrats on our Committee will be focused on that
today.
If this Committee is seriously about defending American
families and Congress' oversight role, a role, Mr. Chair, that
I know you have said, over and over again, is part of what we
were going to be doing here at the Committee, then the hearing
we have today should be about examining blatantly illegal
activities that President Trump has led to undermine the laws
passed by Congress and to wreak havoc on the programs and
services that support Americans.
Mr. Chair, I know you have often talked about how it is
Congress versus the Executive, whoever is in the Executive
Office. That is what is happening right now. Let's hope we
focus on that, because we are seeing it clearly happening.
At President Trump's direction, Elon Musk and his minions
have illegally cutoff funding that Congress passed to support
farmers. They have cutoff funding to support childcare centers.
They have cutoff funding for lifesaving cancer research. They
have cutoff funding for community health centers, cutting off
funding for religious charities and services that Americans
rely on every day. It has all been under the guise of
addressing waste.
But if the Administration is serious about combating waste
and fraud, then the President would not have fired 18
inspectors general (IGs), the independent watchdogs who
actually identify waste, fraud, and abuse. Why is Donald Trump
firing the watchdogs to waste and abuse? If the President is
truly serious about addressing waste and fraud in foreign aid,
he certainly would not have fired the inspector general for the
USAID.
Let's remember, this is not the first time a President has
tested the limits of law when it comes to Presidential powers.
We have seen this movie before. But it is the first time that
Republicans in Congress have simply rolled over and let a
President seize power that the Constitution assigns to the
Legislative Branch. We have the power of the purse, and I have
heard the Chairman talk about that many times in our meetings.
But let's look at an example from history. In the 1970s,
when President Richard Nixon refused to spend money
appropriated for childcare, job programs, environmental cleanup
programs, virtually every Member of Congress, from both
parties, rejected that, passed the Impoundment Control Act of
1974 (ICA), which asserted Congress' constitutional power. When
it passed, it passed unanimously. Every Republican Senator
stood up to Richard Nixon and said, ``This is unacceptable.''
Now clearly that was a time when we did not have feckless
Republican Senators, but it was a great time to look at how we
came together to stand up to Presidential power.
It was not just Congress. President Nixon lost in the
courts over and over again. No judge ever endorsed President
Nixon's argument that he had the right to ignore the laws of
Congress. If President Trump thinks his actions are lawful,
then his Administration should come forward and be able to
answer straightforward questions from Congress. They should
operate in the light of day instead of trying to hide what they
are doing from Congress, the courts, and independent watchdogs.
Mr. Chair, I was disappointed that over the last few weeks
I have had a number of oversight letters that you refused to
sign. I would hope that you would reconsider, and I look
forward to meeting with you to talk through those letters in
the near future.
I think also, Mr. Chair, many of the questions that we have
today about the actions of President Trump that have directed
by Elon Musk, I think that is something that we should also
call in Elon Musk to ask questions, particularly about his
numerous and substantial conflicts of interest while he is
making these kinds of decisions.
I hope that going forward this Committee will work to
defend Congress' role and responsibilities under the law, and
conduct real, meaningful oversight of these lawless actions by
the Trump administration.
Chairman Paul. It is the practice of the Homeland Security
and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC) to swear in
witnesses. Will each of you please rise and raise your right
hand.
Do you swear that the testimony you will give before this
Committee will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but
the truth, so help you, God?
Mr. Shellenberger. I do.
Mr. Ruger. I do.
Chairman Paul. Michael Shellenberger is a best-selling
author and journalist who writes on a wide range of topics
including free speech, censorship, and the environment. He is
the Community-Based Research Chair of Politics, Censorship, and
Free Speech at the University of Texas Austin. He also founded
the online newsletter, Public, and the research organization,
Civilization Works.
Mr. Shellenberger, welcome to the Committee. Mr.
Shellenberger, you are recognized for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF MICHAEL SHELLENBERGER,\1\ FOUNDER, PUBLIC NEWS
Mr. Shellenberger. Thank you, Chairman Paul, Ranking Member
Peters, and members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting my
testimony.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Shellenberger appears in the
Appendix on page 47.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since its creation by President John F. Kennedy in 1961,
the USAID has had as its mission the promotion of America's
values of free speech, democracy, and free markets by helping
others abroad. The name suggests that the organization is
focused on aiding poor nations in ways that result in their
economic growth.
Why, then, has USAID been spending so much money on
information control and information operations, both in the
form of demanding censorship by social media platforms, and by
financing supposedly ``independent'' journalism? Why is the
United States government, in general, and USAID, in particular,
the largest donor to supposedly ``independent media? worldwide?
For example, USAID in 2021 published a ``Disinformation
Primer: that urged greater censorship by social media platforms
as well as ``prebunking,'' a psychological technique to program
people to reject information disfavored by the government
without thinking.
USAID may have been doing and funding worthwhile projects,
and it may be that Congress will need to pass legislation to
continue those projects through the State Department. But it is
inaccurate to suggest that the USAID closure and freeze on aid
will kill African children, as some have done, or cause other
harms. The Trump administration has already created a waiver
for human immunodeficiency viruses (HIV) treatment and resumed
aid for tuberculosis, malaria, and newborn health. And USAID's
health programs should be subject to scrutiny, given the
agency's history of using such programs as cover for other
activities, including regime change and biodefense research.
For example, under President Barack Obama's administration,
USAID was caught using an HIV program to foment rebellion in
Cuba. USAID used EcoHealth Alliance as a passthrough
organization to funnel $1.1 million to the Wuhan Institute of
Virology, which was conducting risky gain-of-function (GOF)
experiments that may have caused the COVID pandemic. USAID gave
EcoHealth Alliance $54 million during that period, which was
more even than the $42 million the group received from the
Pentagon.
As such, anyone who believes in public health for poor
people and poor nations must agree that USAID needs to be
reined in and cleaned up. That starts first with precisely the
kind of audits some Members of Congress are trying to stop.
USAID and all other government agencies must justify what they
are spending their money on. The public's interest is ensuring
that every dollar of taxpayer money is accounted for and
justified.
As recently as 2021, the media acknowledged the obvious.
That year, The New York Times published an article headlined,
``U.S. aid to Central America hasn't slowed migration. Can
Kamala Harris?'' In that, The Times acknowledged that experts
say the reasons that years of aid have not curbed migration is,
in part, because, ``much of the money is handed over to
American companies which swallow a lot of it for salaries,
expenses, and profits, often before any services are
delivered.'' That is precisely the reason President Trump shut
down USAID and demanded an audit.
While the subject of today's hearing is on USAID's
wastefulness, in general, I would like to focus the Committee's
attention on USAID's efforts to take control over independent
investigative journalism and to advocate censorship, in
particular. Together, USAID's censorship and disinformation
activities comprise a complete vision of information control in
service of regime change that USAID and other U.S. Government
agencies have sought in dozens of foreign nations over the last
75 years.
USAID, in recent years, has been funding censorship
advocacy worldwide through a ``Countering Disinformation''
program, which is part of its Consortium for Elections and
Political Process Strengthening. This work has included funding
for so-called ``fact-checking'' organizations, including in
Brazil, a country where I am under criminal investigation for
sharing the Twitter Files Brazil, all entirely accurate and
legal.
At the World Economic Forum last year, a major USAID
contractor, Internews, which received $472.6 million from USAID
over the last 17 years, urged advertiser boycotts to demand
censorship.
That ``advertiser outreach'' was precisely the advertiser
boycott strategy used by groups with ties to U.S. intelligence
community (IC) to pressure Twitter and Facebook to censor
disfavored information.
USAID has also heavily promoted digital identification
systems, which could be tied to social media accounts to allow
governments to punish individuals for what they say and read
online.
Mr. Chair, I have much more to say, but I will end by
saying that Congress should defund all and any Federal programs
and contractors that promote or engage in censorship and
propaganda. Recommitment to an America First foreign policy
should require an unwavering commitment to free speech.
Congress should cutoff funding to groups, including the Aspen
Institute, which interfered in the 2020 election. Trump should
order the State Department, the National Science Foundation
(NSF), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other
agencies to end all contracts with censorship advocates and
misinformation researchers.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Paul. Thank you.
Dr. William Ruger is a foreign policy expert with decades
of experience as a scholar, practitioner, executive, and
military officer. He currently serves as the President of the
American Institute for Economic Research, while also serving as
a commander in the U.S. Navy Reserve.
Dr. Ruger was nominated by President Trump to serve as the
U.S. Ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and was
appointed to the Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board at the
U.S. Department of State in 2020, serving from 2020 to 2023.
Dr. Ruger, welcome to the Committee, and you are recognized
for your opening statement.
TESTIMONY OF WILLIAM RUGER,\1\ PRESIDENT, AMERICAN INSTITUTE
FOR ECONOMIC RESEARCH
Mr. Ruger. Thank you. Chairman Paul, Ranking Member Peters,
and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to
testify about foreign aid. It is an honor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The prepared statement of Mr. Ruger appears in the Appendix on
page 67.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Foreign aid has been pushed to the forefront of the
national debate by President Trump's Inauguration Day Executive
Order (EO), and then what we have seen since with DOGE. In
response, critics have charged that these moves jeopardize
humanitarian efforts across the globe, and even threaten U.S.
national security. In particular, they have emphasized on the
claim that reform efforts would weaken U.S. soft power, create
vacuums that will be filled by our adversaries, and hurt our
overall ability to compete with China in this area of great
power competition.
These national security arguments, though, are not
compelling and do not provide a sound basis to slow down
efforts to reform and even cut back on foreign assistance
itself. I am going to address some of these issues on the
national security front.
Cutting aid is simply not going to ruin American foreign
policy. The most important determinants of American security do
not include, ``soft power'' resulting from foreign aid, even
assuming that foreign aid programs are effective at producing
soft power as opposed to our market economy and our great
companies in this country, as well as our great culture.
Instead, our relative material power, both our military
capabilities and our economic and technological strength, and
our geostrategic advantages are the most important things for
our safety and prosperity. Thus, the geopolitical implications
of the fight over foreign aid are fairly limited.
In terms of our material power, maintaining a large
national defense capability second to none is what allows us to
defend our interest and deter attacks on our territory. Our
security is also supported by our fortunate geostrategic
position, and as we deal with the rise of potential peer
competitors, maintaining our military edge is far more
important to our security than even the best aid programs.
This combination of military power and our geostrategic
position allow us to enjoy some detachment from problems in the
developing world, and thus further reduce the security
relevance, though not necessarily the humanitarian relevance of
many foreign aid programs in those areas. We should avoid
thinking that it is a matter of strategic necessity to be
deeply engaged everywhere. Sound geostrategic, and even
geoeconomic, thinking requires prioritization and tradeoffs. We
cannot be equally concerned about Chinese aid programs in Nepal
and what this means for U.S. security and prosperity, and
Chinese political penetration of Latin America, which could
have a lot of ramifications to the United States.
Our economic strength is also a key cause of our security,
and our economy is the golden goose, as long as we do not
undermine it through wasteful and excessive spending and the
debt and deficits that result, poor tax and monetary policy,
constraining overregulation, or cultural decay. While foreign
aid is a small percentage of the national budget, it should
still be scrutinized for waste and effectiveness.
There is also some evidence that foreign aid can have a
negative impact on target societies and even harm American soft
power, exacerbating anti-Americanism by creating winners and
losers in these places, with the losers blaming the United
States for local problems. In Egypt, a decade ago, protesters
said Obama can take his foreign aid and go to hell. That is an
example of how foreign aid actually stimulated anti-Americanism
in these countries.
Moreover, there are numerous studies that show the
ineffectiveness of foreign assistance to even economic
development.
Aid spend also does not necessarily work to keep States on
our side in today's great power competition. For example, USAID
did not stop poor African countries from expelling our forces,
though it is not clear it made much sense for those troops to
be there in the first place.
Now critics of aid also claim that such a policy will
create a vacuum of power that the Chinese will happily fill,
thus eating our lunch in great power competition. The problem
with this argument is that (1) it is not clear that even where
adversaries like China were to fill these vacuums created by
cutting aid, that this would necessarily hurt us. And (2) it is
not clear that the Chinese experience with aid will be any
better than ours at creating soft power that they can
meaningfully exploit to their advantage. Indeed, there is
evidence that Chinese aid efforts have been backfiring, and I
would be happy to say a lot more about that in the question and
answers (Q&A).
The other thing is that critics are claiming too much about
what the Administration is doing. The fact is that the Trump
administration is not proposing cutting all assistance.
Secretary Rubio recently stated, on February 10th, in an
interview on SiriusXM, he said, ``We are not walking away from
foreign aid. We will be involved in foreign aid.'' Instead,
what the Administration is doing is trying to make a
distinction between aid that can be reasonably argued to
advance America's national interests and aid that cannot pass a
basic smell test, like the ones that Senator Paul discussed
earlier.
If we are going to change our foreign policy to one that
prioritizes American national interests and respects the
hardworking American taxpayers, then fixing our foreign policy
assistance programs is imperative. Too much spending is
disconnected from making us stronger, more secure, and more
prosperous, to use Secretary Rubio's three-part test from his
confirmation hearings here in the Senate. Too often it is in
the service of questionable social and political goals that
many Americans find dubious. Foreign aid is not going to be the
margin in which we win or lose today's great power competition.
I think it would be wise for us to get our own house in
order economically, by looking carefully at programs that
cannot deliver for our security or prosperity, or so indirectly
connected to legitimate goals as to be based more on an article
of kind of faith than sound analysis that I think conservatives
should be known for. I commend any efforts to scrutinize aid
and provide accountability so programs can deliver for the
American people.
Thank you, Senator.
Chairman Paul. Senator Johnson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Unlike our Ranking
Member, I really appreciate you holding this hearing.
In 2019, before the pandemic, total Federal Government
spending was $4.4 trillion. The Wall Street Journal just
reported the first four months of this year we spent $2.43
trillion, multiply that times three, and we are on a course of
spending $7.3 trillion this year, six years later. That is a 61
percent increase while the population has grown 2.6 percent. So
we need to scrutinize all this spending.
Now, I thought it was interesting. I do not know how many
boards you had up there, but the example after example after
example of just outrageous waste and abuse of the taxpayer
dollar.
The Ranking Member apparently accused you two gentlemen,
you were going to be peddling conspiracy theories. That all was
the truth. Do you have any idea what the Ranking Member is
talking about, Mr. Shellenberger?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, of course I find it somewhat ironic
that one of the greatest conspiracy theories of recent times
was the Russiagate collusion hoax, which was this idea that
President Trump was being controlled by Putin through a sex
blackmail operation. It was one of the most wild conspiracy
theories ever devised, and of course it was created by deep
state operatives working on taxpayer funding.
Another wild conspiracy theory, of course, Senator, was the
Hunter Biden laptop was a Russian disinformation effort.
Senator Johnson. Which, by the way, the Ranking Member
accused me, when I was investing that, of soliciting and
disseminating Russian disinformation on that, wrote an actual
Senate report falsely accusing me of that. But go on.
Mr. Shellenberger. Right. Of course, now we know the
Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had the laptop in
November or December 2019. They then got the Aspen Institute to
engage in what is called ``prebunking'' or a kind of
brainwashing, convincing journalists and social media platforms
that there would be a Russian hack and leak that fall involving
Hunter Biden and Burisma. That is an illegal weaponization of
the FBI, of a U.S. Government contractor and grantee, the Aspen
Institute. These things have not been fully investigated, but
we know, thanks to the Twitter Files, that this was the illegal
weaponization of our government agencies, in order to spread a
conspiracy theory in service of demanding censorship, which is
what they then did when the New York Post article came out in
October.
Senator Johnson. I also have to point out that I was a
target of that prebunking campaign when both Senator Grassley
and I received an unsolicited briefing by the FBI, that we were
targets of Russian disinformation. To this day, we have not
found out who directed that briefing.
Mr. Ruger, do you want to defend yourself from being
accused of conspiracy theorist?
Mr. Ruger. Yes. I am a theorist. I am an international
relations theorist. I think what I said is definitely within
the broad tradition of political realism that has served this
country well, really focusing in, I think, on the importance of
our strengths and how we defend and deter against enemies. And
I think, applying good economic analysis to aid programs and
other government programs because they need to pass a cost-
benefit analysis.
Too often, I think, and especially given what we talked
about with the $36 trillion in debt, we are not applying good
tradeoff decisions in terms of how we spend our money, and I
think, again, that is one of the reasons why it is really
important that we focus in on this.
I applaud what President Trump is doing here, because
somebody has to get a handle on this. I think it is a good
stimulate for Congress to do its own work to help support the
President and making sure we are protecting taxpayer money.
Senator Johnson. We are very compassionate people. We are.
We want to help people. We want to help combat Acquired
immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and feed the world.
Where did USAID go off the rails? It was established, I
think, good purpose. Even things like Radio Liberty, those
types of efforts seem to make sense. But where did they go off
the rails? Mr. Shellenberger, do you have a theory on that?
Mr. Shellenberger. The regime change effort that then
resulted in this effort that really starts around 2007, 2008.
It is led by USAID. USAID creates and provides all of the
initial funding. It was from the State Department originally.
Senator Johnson. Who was in charge back then?
Mr. Shellenberger. Of USAID? I believe, well, that was
2008, so President--I am not sure.
Senator Johnson. So under the Bush Administration----
Mr. Shellenberger. It was under the Bush Administration.
Senator Johnson [continuing]. It started going off the
rails. Mr. Ruger, do you have any idea? What is your theory?
When did all this start going south, or going left?
Mr. Ruger. Again, one question really, at the beginning, is
how effective are these types of assistance programs, period.
So you could argue that in some senses it just went off the
rails from the very beginning because it opens the door to the
idea that there is potentially no limit to what could be
effective for the United States if we spend that money abroad.
But, in fact, that is not the case, right. There has not been
the type of cost-benefit analysis that is needed here.
Again, I think part of it is fundamental to a program where
you are spending millions and billions of dollars across the
globe in a way that it is very difficult to achieve
accountability, particularly if those within the bureaucracy
are less subject to the kind of incentives that care about how
this money is spent.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Ruger. Thank you, Mr.
Chair.
Chairman Paul. Senator Peters.
Senator Peters. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk's illegal dismantling of Federal
agencies will definitely harm the safety and financial security
of American people. We have seen already, and we are hearing
about their unlawful government actions related to USAID.
But let's take a look at their next victim. They have
already taken action on their next victim, which is the
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Conveniently, just as
President Trump's top lieutenant and his mega-donor, the man
with incredible conflicts of interest, Elon Musk, he is about
to launch a new payment system at his company X, and that
company would have been subject to CFPB regulation. But now
Trump has decided to dismantle that agency. I may also say the
CFPB has also received hundreds of complaints about Musk, his
other company, Tesla. Isn't that interesting, a man with
massive conflicts, a man who has not been vetted, is now
working to destroy an agency that would actually oversee his
operations, and operations that have received complaints
because of the actions that he has taken.
CFPB was created by Congress, with bipartisan support, in
the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. Its mission is to
protect Americans from scams and predatory companies. CFPB has
improved American lives by capping credit card late fees, bank
overdraft fees, reduced junk fees, has banned medical debt on
credit reports--I could go on.
But now, President Trump and the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) Director Vought are illegally destroying the
agency. Let's be clear. This is an agency that has saved
American taxpayers $21 billion--saved taxpayers $21 billions--
and is in the sight of unvetted, billionaire, huge conflicts of
interest Musk. He wants to destroy it because it would oversee
his new business venture.
With CFPB shuttered, seniors, veterans, student borrowers
are going to be at risk of unfair financial service practices,
including debanking, payday lending, and mortgage fraud. In
fact, if you look at some of that mortgage fraud it changes
with the Military Lending Act, where financial institutions
taking advantage of the men and women who are serving our
country. They counted on CFPB to protect them. Nope. Trump and
Musk get rid of that. Scrap saving money for taxpayers. We do
not like these regulatory actions over banks and payday lenders
and people like Elon Musk.
With CFPB shuttered, seniors, veterans, student borrowers
are going to be at risk of unfair service practices on a
regular basis, and it will only let companies continue to rip
off consumers, and get away with fraud.
Who will President Trump and Musk's next target be? It
looks like it is the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The
FAA works 24/7 to provide the safest flight experience across
the country. After the January 29th crash at Ronald Reagan
International Airport, Americans are now, more than ever,
concerned about having safe air travel.
However, just days before that tragic crash, President
Trump encouraged air traffic controllers to resign. We already
have a shortage of air traffic controllers, and the President
urged them to resign, knowing full well you just cannot turn on
the spigot and hire new controllers when you already have a
shortage. It takes months, years to train air traffic
controllers. Before that crash, President Trump said, ``No,
resign, even though we have a shortage.''
He then tapped Elon Musk to lead the efforts to remake the
FAA, despite his clear conflicts of interest. Musk leads the
largest private space company, SpaceX, which is regulated--oh,
a theme here--which is regulated by the FAA. Just this fall,
the FAA proposed $633,000 in fines to SpaceX.
I believe the last thing Americans need is President Trump
allowing a self-interested, unvetted billionaire, with massive
conflicts of interest, to do whatever he wants to destroy
agencies that oversee his companies, where he is making huge
profits.
Maybe they are going to go after the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) next. This agency is
tasked with ensuring that all cars on our roads are safe and
reliable. Elon Musk, of course, is the Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) of Tesla, and has criticized commonsense safety
requirements like reporting on crashes that involve his
partially automated vehicles.
If we continue to let President Trump and Musk unilaterally
decide which agencies can function and even exist, our roads
and skies are going to be more dangerous, and more Americans
will die.
Or maybe President Trump will make good on his view to get
rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
Unfortunately, we have seen, over the past three weeks of his
presidency, he is again and again willing to peddle
disinformation, overstep his authority, and break the law.
Getting rid of FEMA would mean the Federal Government is
abandoning Americans before, during, and after disasters like
wildfires, tornadoes, hurricanes, and even floods.
While I am sure everyone here would agree FEMA can and
should be reformed, and I will lead that charge to make sure
that they better meet the needs of disaster survivors, it still
plays a critical role. American lives and helping communities
rebuild after increasingly common and more destructive natural
disasters is something we should be focused on. Federal-
supported resources such as food, water, generators, urban
search and rescue teams, and communication infrastructures can
save lives in the aftermath of a disaster.
FEMA also administers billions of dollars in mitigation
grants to reduce the impact of natural hazards, which can save
lives and protect property.
Mr. Chair, I hope that we can look at these other changes
that we are seeing, to see whether or not it is fraud or abuse,
and whether or not that is something that we need to examine. I
would hope in future hearings we will take a look at an
unvetted, highly conflicted person making these choices, to
understand what is behind their actions.
Chairman Paul. Senator Lankford.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LANKFORD
Senator Lankford. Thank you, Chairman Paul. Gentlemen,
thanks for being here. Actually, yesterday I released my eighth
report, what we call Federal Fumbles, where we regularly put
out in front of the American people areas of waste and abuse
and fraud for improper payments, and try to be able to
highlight those and shine some sunshine on them to hopefully
get rid of them and to be able to make tax dollars more
efficient in the way we are spending on this.
Many of those things, as you can imagine full well, were
foreign aid related, that we have talked about over the last
several years, including this year, as well. We highlighted
that the Federal Government and the American taxpayer paid for
12 drag shows in Ecuador. I am not sure why the people of
Ecuador could not pay for their own drag shows, but apparently
Oklahoma taxpayers had to pay for that.
The USAID-funded fisheries in Algeria, where they literally
built a fish farm in the middle of the desert, among a people
that do not eat fish, actually, in their normal diet because
they live in the desert, they do not normally eat fish, and
were not interested in eating the fish, but American taxpayers,
my Oklahoma taxpayers paid for those, and that has become an
issue for me.
There was a study that was done by the National Endowment
for the Humanities (NEH) on humans, chimpanzees, and climate
change in Sierra Leone. We highlighted how we did a study with
Oklahoma tax dollars to study the effect of climate change on
European butterflies. Again, I do not know why the Europeans
could not pay for that. We did a study on the effects of COVID-
19 on the Russians--again, not sure why the Russians could not
have paid for that. One of my favorites of the long list of
least-favorites here, we did a study on the benefit of seat
belts and helmets on individuals driving in Ghana. I could go
ahead and tell you right now, seat belts and helmets will help
you, and you do not have to pay a dime to be able to do that
study.
So over and over and over again we have highlighted this.
The difference now and then is there is a bigger megaphone, and
part of the frustration from my friends on the left is Elon
Musk is daring to tell a billion people on X that this is
happening. But when it was only a few people that knew, or my
limited following on X, it was OK. But if the megaphone gets
louder, and it gets pointed out more, it becomes more offensive
because then it becomes a risk.
I have several things that I want to be able to drill down
on. I have talked for years about Voice of America and the
messaging they put out. It is literally government-paid
journalists that are supposed to tell the government story of
America internationally. What they are actually doing often is
talking about murders in America, and riots in America, and how
Trump is ruining Christianity in America, and on and on and on
have been the negative stories about America that they are
telling to the world on it.
One of my first questions to either of you is about the
messaging that we put out globally, that we put out with
Oklahoma tax dollars and American tax dollars, to tell the
American story and how the American story is being told
internationally.
Mr. Ruger. Thank you, Senator. I could actually speak a
little bit from my experience with the Fulbright Scholarship
board, where I was also chagrined to see some of the people
that we were thinking about sending abroad clearly did not love
this country and clearly had a kind of criticism that I think
was not the best message that you would necessarily want to see
out there in the world.
I also worry about the boomerang effect, so not just the
message that we are sending abroad but because of the nature of
technology today these voices that are meant to help create
narratives abroad actually coming back and being a form of
government propaganda here at home. Because that message, like
maybe in the 1950s, when we were trying to, say, subvert
communism in Greece, that message then comes back here. The
content of that message, like you are talking about, is so
critical that it is, in fact, something that is supportive of
our interests and accurate, and something that is not going to
undermine support for the United States here at home even.
Senator Lankford. Right. Mr. Shellenberger, do you want to
add anything to that?
Mr. Shellenberger. I mean, of course everybody should be
free to speak their mind. But I think if we are going to have
taxpayers funding this activity they should be talking about
how special this country is. That is why so many people have
been trying to come here. The level of anti-Americanism and
globalism that we have seen promoted by these organizations, I
think it is horrendous. I share your views.
Senator Lankford. When the global media outlet for the
United States sounds a lot like Russia Today's messaging
globally, we have a problem, and that is our problem. They
spend a lot of time saying we are going to prove that we have
free press by having government-paid reporters tell a story. If
they want to prove we have a free press we can point to
Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), American Broadcasting
Company (ABC), and National Broadcasting Company (NBC), and say
look, we have a free press on it, but we should be getting our
messaging out on this.
One other quick question on this. The inspector general for
Afghan reconstruction noted at least $11 million has gone
directly to the Taliban from our foreign aid of the $2 billion,
and they could not identify the rest, exactly who were the
recipients of that aid. Have you been able to track at all aid
that has gone directly to the Taliban since we have left
Afghanistan?
Mr. Shellenberger. I have not, sir, but what I will point
out is there have been a lot of complaints about the inspector
general at USAID being let go. What was the inspector general
doing exactly? I mean, we have seen all the waste, fraud, and
abuse that you have documented, so what is the point of having
an inspector general if they are not going to inspect?
Senator Lankford. Right. I do hope that the President
actually nominates a new inspector general quickly. That is an
important role for Congress to be able to have some insight
into different agencies, and it is important to have that role.
But I would agree. Your job is to inspect and to be able to
report back, and if you are not identifying this waste, why are
you there?
I yield back.
Chairman Paul. Senator Blumenthal.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR BLUMENTHAL
Senator Blumenthal. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I am disappointed
that we are not having a serious hearing on how to improve
USAID. There is room for improvement in every agency, as there
is in almost anything that we do. But this hearing is simply
designed to give cover for President Trump's unlawful
dismantling of a congressionally established agency. Against
the law, and against the interests of this country, and against
the interests of many in this country, including American
farmers who benefit from it.
The inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International
Development, Paul Martin, has submitted a report.\1\ I ask that
it be made part of the record, if there is no objection.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The report submitted by Senator Blumenthal appears in the
Appendix on page 100.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In that report was critical of the so-called pause in
foreign assistance funding, saying that it has delayed $489
million of food assistance, at ports, in transit, and in
warehouses--I am quoting--at the risk of spoilage,
unanticipated storage needs, and diversion. That is waste in
government, and it is not just a little bit of waste. It is
humongous waste, $489 million in those fees alone. He says the
pause in funding and reductions in staff, including over 90
percent of Behavioral Health Administration (BHA's) workforce
furloughed or placed on administrative leave, as undermined two
key oversight mechanisms to assure accountability over
humanitarian assistance, funding, partner vetting, and third-
party monitoring. I do not have time to go into the details,
but that is also waste.
When we talk about the other effects of this pause, let's
look at the effect on farmers, American farmers, who grow the
food that USAID distributes. American farmers, in 2022 alone,
USAID helped to distribute nearly four billion pounds of
American-grown food to 58 million people around the globe.
I know that some of my colleagues are reluctant to defend
foreign humanitarian aid. It does not always poll well. It is
humanitarian assistance. I think Americans are better than
trashing the idealistic goals that have motivated our nation
over the years. But putting aside the humanitarian instincts
behind some of USAID, here is what American farmers have said
in reaction to these actions.
President of the Iowa Farmers Union said, ``USAID is
important for farmers. It is unfortunate that we would drop
those relationships that we have built over time.''
The Ohio Farmers Union President said, ``USAID plays a
crucial role, not only providing food aid to millions around
the world but also directly purchasing grains from Ohio
farmers. Ohio farmers are more than capable of rising to the
challenge of feeding the world, but they need stability to do
so.''
In shuttering USAID, President Trump is pulling billions of
dollars away from American farmers without apparently a second
thought. That is a lot of harm, that is a lot of waste and a
lot of abuse to people who are the backbone of food production
in this Nation.
Already, a lot of their labor, investment, produce going to
waste as a result of the Musk power grab, slash-and-trash
agencies, in the name of eliminating waste, fraud, and abuse,
but in fact creating it, and profiting from it. Elon Musk is
giving America a middle finger, in seizing power, engaging in
the biggest heist of information in America's history, delving
into agencies and destroying them when his own corporations
profit from contracts with them, and controlling contracts in
the future that will benefit his corporations. That is waste
and fraud, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Thank you. The accusation or criticism has
been made that this is an un-serious hearing full of conspiracy
theorists. Yes, the Democrats were asked to participate, like
they always are, the same way we were when we were in the
minority. They could have brought a witness. They chose not to
even bring a witness. I cannot conjecture as to why, but maybe
it is because it is so embarrassing, the stuff that USAID is
spending their money on.
Who could possibly be against ending $2 million for sex
change surgeries in Guatemala? I mean, who wants to defend
that? I have not heard anybody yet defend the waste and
malfeasance that is going on over there. Three million dollars
for girl-centric climate change. Maybe there is not a witness
here, maybe it is not serious, but I do not hear anybody
explaining why we should continue to do that.
Now there is a legal question. If there is $40 billion in
USAID and they do not spend it at all and it just sits there,
can the President impound it? This is a real question, and it
may come to that.
But I do not think any court is going to find that the
Executive Branch cannot pause and audit spending. To crassly
say, and just to jump to say, ``It's illegal. It's unlawful.
It's a tragedy. It's constitutional chaos,'' well, auditing
spending is what government should do. It is the traditional
oversight that has not been done in a generation. That is why
we are finding this stuff. It has been creeping up for a
generation.
And $4.8 million for social media influencers in Ukraine.
If people want to defend that, step forward and defend it. We
are finding waste and malfeasance.
You also have to realize that when you have a social
agenda, and your social agenda is, lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender and queer (LGBTQ), well, when you take that to a
conservative country that has religious problems with that, and
you want to foist it on them and fly flags, what ends up
happening is that does not increase diplomacy; that actually
goes against diplomacy. I do not care what people's views are
on any of these subjects. You can have any view on LGBT, but it
should not be part of foreign policy to force this on everybody
around the world. It just is not part of government, and should
never be part of government.
But we are only finding this out because we have a
President with the courage, including the advice of Elon Musk,
including the advice of a lot of us, who have been saying for
years we need to look at USAID and make sure that they are not
committing fraud.
Look, this morning the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of
FEMA was fired because she is spending $54 million on luxury
hotels for illegal aliens. My goodness. There are a lot of
Americans struggling to find work. Laken Riley's killer, we
flew him and put him up in a luxury hotel in New York. He was
there for a few months, we spent all of the money on his meals,
and then we flew him to Atlanta, and then he drifted over to
Athens, and then he killed Laken Riley. Most Americans think
that is crazy and we should not be doing it, but we are only
finding it out because for once we have a President with the
courage to say no, to go over there and put a padlock on the
door and take the name down.
But ultimately there will be a legal question. Can he
impound it, or will it have to come back to Congress? I
actually, frankly, think the better way is spend about $30
billion and send $10 back, and we do a recission. There is a
method for doing that, and I hope that is what is done.
But even on the impoundment question there are questions
exactly, and I do not think it has ever made it all the way to
the Supreme Court. There is court precedent on it. We have not
gotten to that. A pause in funding is an impoundment. A pause
in funding to do an audit is just good government, frankly.
The question I have for the panel is this, though.
Senator Blumenthal. Mr. Chair, may I just inquire----
Chairman Paul. Sure.
Senator Blumenthal [continuing]. Because the Chair
mentioned that we do not have a minority witness. I would
suggest, and I am speaking out of turn here because the Ranking
Member is not here and I do not purport to speak for him----
Chairman Paul. We are docking your time for next week. I am
just kidding.
Senator Blumenthal. But I would respectfully suggest that
we have Paul Martin, who was fired as inspector general, come
before us, along with----
Chairman Paul. We did not deny any witnesses. Your side did
not put forward a witness. We did not deny any witnesses. You
did not put forward a witness. But I just think it is
disingenuous to sit there and----
Senator Blumenthal. Rather than standing----
Chairman Paul. It is a personal attack on me to call this
un-serious and a bunch of conspiracy. It is an attack on our
witnesses, as well. That is a pejorative, and that is name-
calling. All right? You are welcome to object to things they
say have facts to counter them, but to call this an un-serious
hearing of conspiracy theorists----
Senator Blumenthal. I never used that term, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. You said it was not serious. You said the
hearing was not serious.
The thing is, you all chose not to participate in it, so
that is on you.
Senator Blumenthal. Maybe we can have a second hearing,
because this is such an important topic.
Chairman Paul. We can have a dozen on this. There is so
much to talk about.
But anyway, I am not criticizing your Ranking Member for
being un-serious or conspiracy theorist. He has his opinions.
We make our arguments, both sides. But we call names and say,
oh, well, your ideas are conspiracy theories, that is a
pejorative, and that does not get us anywhere, frankly. Because
it is also dangerous in the sense that many people who then
say, oh, it is a conspiracy theory, well, government should
suppress that.
This is what went on. We had 23 scientists come forward in
Lancet and say that the possibility that the virus came from a
lab in Wuhan was a conspiracy theory. Then government promoted
back, to Twitter and others, and met with them on a weekly
basis, trying to suppress. Facebook, for a year and a half,
said that ideas like mine, that it could have come from the
lab, were to be suppressed.
Michael Shellenberger, if you would not mind responding to
how the government was involved with trying to suppress speech,
that you found out through Twitter Files.
Mr. Shellenberger. Sure, and also I would think whenever
you hear somebody accuse somebody of a conspiracy theory, I
think you should consider that they are themselves spreading
disinformation. In other words, we know that the proximal
origins paper that you are describing there, we know from their
internal discussion that those scientists were pursuing the lab
leak theory. We saw it in their Slack messages. Then they got a
phone call--they talked from the higher-ups--and then they
ended up changing their whole hypothesis over a weekend.
We have seen repeatedly that term used to dismiss very
serious evidence of misconduct and of actual conspiracies. We
have seen the rise of an entire censorship industrial complex.
There is no theorizing here. These are just the facts of the
censorship industrial complex that was created by the
Department of Homeland Security, starting in 2021, really
started before then in 2020, all the way culminating in the
Disinformation Governance Board, which was so Orwellian that
even Democrats had to back away from it.
Chairman Paul. Senator Hassan.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HASSAN
Senator Hassen. Thanks, Mr. Chair. I want to thank you and
the Ranking Member. For years I have worked on a bipartisan
basis to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse within the Federal
Government, including on bills with you, Mr. Chair. These
efforts are critical to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being
spent efficiently.
If this Committee and President Trump, though, actually
wanted to reduce waste and fraud, they would work together to
support and bolster inspectors general. Inspectors General are
indispensable watchdogs who identify multimillion-dollar
overpayments to big corporations, exactly what Elon Musk claims
he wants to root out.
To use the inspector general of the Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS) as an example, last year the HHS
inspector general exposed $35 million in improper Medicare
payments after equipment companies charged the government for
thousands of catheters for patients who did not need them.
Additionally, last year two pharmacy owners went to jail after
the HHS inspector general helped uncover that they had
fraudulently submitted at least $20 million in false Medicare
claims for cancer medication.
All told, the HHS inspector general identified $7 billion
last year in waste, fraud, and abuse within the Department but
did President Trump and Elon Musk support and empower
inspectors general? No, they did not. Instead, just days into
his Administration, President Trump illegally fired at least 17
inspectors general in a move to silence those who would provide
accountability and oversight over his Administration. Since
their firing we are growing to get a better picture of why they
were fired. Just yesterday, we found out that the State
Department is planning to buy $400 million in armored vehicles
from Elon Musk's Tesla company. Elon Musk spent $250 million to
get President Trump elected, and now President Trump is
returning the favor.
After clearing out the watchdogs, the President decided to
unleash chaos and confusion on Granite Staters and Americans
through an illegal order to cutoff nearly all Federal grants.
These were grants that fire departments count on to upgrade
their equipment, police departments use to hire officers to
protect our streets, and shelters need to provide homeless
veterans a place to sleep.
While Federal courts have temporarily halted the
President's funding cutoff, I continue to hear from
organizations that are unable to access the Federal funding
that they had been awarded, that we appropriated, that is law.
This is the real cost of the illegal move by President
Trump to cutoff funding, Granite Staters left in the lurch, not
knowing how much longer their community health center will
remain open, or if their childcare facility will be able to
stay open and they will be able to go to work.
The American people want relief from high costs, and they
want their government to work. But as inflation and egg prices
soar, the President illegally fired the people, the very
people, who root out waste and fraud, and have a track record
of doing it. Then he illegally took funding away from law
enforcement and community groups.
I urge the President to reverse course and for this
Committee to work together to find commonsense ways to address
the challenges that Americans are facing today.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Senator Scott.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator Rick Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a great
hearing. As you know, the Federal Government is spending money
like it is going out of style. Last year it spent nearly $7
trillion, and the revenues were $5.2 trillion. Nobody in this
country can do that. Nobody can do it in their personal life.
Businesses cannot do it. Only the Federal Government. We are
being forced to borrow another $1.9 trillion to make up for it.
It is one of the reasons we now have over $36 trillion worth of
debt, and we are heading quickly to $37 trillion.
Over the last four years, while the population has grown
two percent, the Federal Government has increased spending by
53 percent. They have added $8 trillion to the national debt in
four years. This is not sustainable. If nothing changes, our
Federal Government is on track to add $1 trillion to the
Federal debt every 180 days.
The cost of debt is another massive problem. Right now more
than $1 trillion, money that hardworking Americans pay in taxes
each year, is just going to pay the interest on the Federal
debt. That is a waste.
I am very appreciative of what President Trump is doing and
what DOGE is doing to try to find all this waste. They are
going agency by agency, one by one, and finding out how every
single dollar is spent, and making sure it is spent in the best
interest of the American public.
Unfortunately, many Democrats among this Committee have
expressed outrage, but the outrage is better suited for some of
the absurd, wasteful spending they have already uncovered.
Let's look at USAID. They provided full finding for al-Qaeda
terrorist, Anwar al-Awlaki, to attend college in Colorado. They
gave $310 million to start a Palestinian cement factor, which
was used to help Hamas build terror tunnels into Gaza. How can
you be this stupid?
Another $1.5 million to advance diversity, equity, and
inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and to business communities.
How does that help an American? Forty-seven thousand for a
transgender operation in Colombia. How does that help America?
And $2.5 million for electric vehicles in Vietnam. How does
that help America?
A multiyear study for the Middle East Forum uncovered $164
million of approved grants to radical organizations, $122
million, according to groups aligned with designated
terrorists. How does that help Americans? Billions more to
charities that have histories of failing to vet their partners.
The families I represent would agree that is not how they
want their tax dollars spent. They would rather have their tax
dollars spent putting Americans first or advancing our
interests abroad, not funding terrorists against us or allies
who are funding some fringe globalist agenda.
I am very appreciative of what President Trump has done, I
appreciate what DOGE is doing, and I appreciate what Marco
Rubio, our ex-colleague, is doing running State.
Mr. Shellenberger, DOGE also discovered that the Biden
administration spent millions of dollars on subscriptions to
left-leaning media outlets like Politico. The Biden
administration censored certain media and Americans online that
did not favor the administration's narrative, and now we see
that their administration was essentially financing media
outlets to favor them. How is this not a conflict of interest,
and what do you think of this?
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, I agree it is a huge conflict of
interest, and it is really just the tip of the iceberg. What we
uncovered in our reporting is that the USAID has basically been
bankrolling an organization called the Organized Crime and
Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), which has been in the
process, over the last decade and a half, of really taking over
so-called independent investigative journalism around the
world, usually relying on strategic leaks by the intelligence
community but with an aim to really undermine the independence
of investigative journalism.
When we started investigating these guys they threatened to
sue us right away. They have a $9 million fund just to sue
people. It is called Reporter's Shield, but it is an offense
weapon that they use to basically shut down any inquiry into
what they are doing. We have even seen now, we have now traced
that USAID money to investigations that were essential to the
2019 impeachment of President Donald Trump and then also to the
Russiagate hoax, particularly spreading misinformation and
malinformation about Trump's alleged ties to the Russians.
Of course, one of the greatest conspiracy theorists of the
recent era, which alleged that because President Trump banked
with Deutsche Bank, and that there were Russian oligarchs who
also banked with Deutsche Bank, that there had to be some sort
of a conspiracy.
So that is just the tip of the iceberg, sir. It is really a
deep corruption of so-called mainstream independent media.
Senator Scott. Based on your investigation, you also talk
about how USAID transfers funds between projects to make it
hard for anybody to track the funds. Can you elaborate?
Mr. Shellenberger. Sure. Part of what happened is that one
of the media organizations in Germany, one of their big
television stations, Norddeutscher Rundfunk (NDR), really
turned the tables on OCCRP and began an investigation. USAID
admitted, on camera, that they had routed money from the State
Department's Law Enforcement Bureau through USAID just for
optics reasons, admitting on camera that they did that because
they knew that it would look bad for an investigative
journalism organization to be supported by effective the cops,
by law enforcement. That is not good journalism practice that
violates basically every code of ethics by every journalism
organization in the world.
They also acknowledged that the USAID has to agree to
OCCRP's work plan and that they have to agree to their key
staff. This was all literally recorded on video, USAID
officials saying this. Then, afterwards, OCCRP denied it. They
just said that that was not true. It just asserted that it was
false.
I mean, really what you are looking at with OCCRP and also
Internews is that these are really vectors of disinformation.
They spread disinformation and then demand censorship on the
basis of it. That is what they did with the COVID lab leak, as
the Chair was mentioning. First they spread the disinformation
that it was a conspiracy theory that it could have come from a
lab when, of course, their own scientists suspected that is
what it was. Then they demanded censorship on the basis of it.
The same thing happened with Hunter Biden, and we see that
playbook, I think, underway here today, where when journalists
start to expose these misdeeds, they just project and say, you
are spreading a conspiracy theory, and, of course, that has
been traditionally the basis for demanding censorship.
Senator Scott. In 2022, the Biden administration donated
$344 million to United Nations Relief and Works Agency for
Palestinian Refugees, and continued to donate hundreds of
millions of dollars throughout 2023 and during the Israeli-
Hamas war. We now know Hamas terrorists were stealing food and
supplies intended for humanitarian purposes. So was the U.S.
Government funding a terrorist organization?
Mr. Shellenberger. It sure looks like that, and I have not
investigated that particular case. But I think one of the big
lessons from all this, we may remember, those of us that are
old enough to remember what we were learning after September
11, 2001 (9/11) is that that was a process of blowback. We had
been arming the Mujahideen, and we had been in alliance with
the folks that actually then, their networks then ended up
creating the 9/11 attacks.
I think what we are seeing here is starting to blow back on
us, where we see the disinformation and censorship being
weaponized against the American people, because we have a USAID
complex that has been completely unaccountable. Obviously, the
inspector general was not doing his job right, and therefore I
think merits this very serious audit.
I agree with the Chair. If there is good stuff that they
have been doing--and I do not doubt that there has been--then
it should make the case for it and be added in back later,
rather than sort of, that we all assume that everything is
fine.
Senator Scott. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chairman Paul. Senator Kim.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR KIM
Senator Kim. Thank you, Mr. Chair, for pulling this
together. I just want to reflect on this a little bit because
there is a room, and there is a way for us to have a debate
about the effectiveness and the efficiency of foreign aid. But
what is happening right now in our Nation, this is not the
right way to go about it. I hear about a pause here, but this
is not a pause. We are seeing a gutting of the staff down to
approximately 600.
If it is a pause to look and reflect and see what is not
working, what should not be done, then let's pause on the
gutting of the staff. Let's pause on the transfer of USAID
under the State Department.
I just wanted to show that this is not a pause. This is not
a review. This is already a reorganization, already a
dismantling of USAID as it is. I say that as someone who, a
little over 20 years ago, stepped into the Ronald Reagan
building for the very first day of my career in public service.
I served at USAID. I do not know who else in this room has.
But I will just tell you that I was proud to be able to
serve at USAID and serve this country. I worked at USAID. I
worked at the Pentagon. I worked at the State Department. I
have been a part of the three D's of our foreign policy, of
defense, diplomacy, and development, and seen that in action.
So I disagree with the idea that the type of power, the type of
influence that we are trying to move forward on at USAID does
not matter, that it is only about material military power.
We have seen how, for instance, when it was our response to
the earthquake in Turkey or the flooding in Pakistan, how that
was something that was able to open up diplomatic channels, to
be able to move forward, build on the relationship. It was the
work that we were doing through USAID that was able to get some
of our diplomatic efforts, and including our military efforts,
in a better position.
I say that as someone who walked into the Reagan Building.
There is a reason why USAID is in the Ronald Reagan Building.
It is because Ronald Reagan himself was a strong supporter of
USAID and foreign assistance. He said, ``The ultimate
importance to the United States of our security and development
assistance programs cannot be exaggerated.'' He said, ``Our
national interests are inextricably tied to the security and
development of our friends and allies.''
When it came to people criticizing USAID, he said, ``You
know the excuses. We can't afford foreign aid anymore, or we
are wasting money, pouring it into these poor countries, or we
cannot buy friends. Other countries just take the money and
dislike us for giving it,'' a lot of things that we heard here
today.
Ronald Reagan concludes, saying, ``Well, all of these
excuses are just that, excuses, and they are dead wrong.''
What I heard today, people talking about USAID as if it is
charity. One person said, ``Foreign aid is not charity. We must
make sure it is well spent but is less than one percent of the
budget and critical to our national security.'' The person who
said that is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, when he was with
us in the Senate.
He also went on to say that he urged President Biden to
move forward and prioritize USAID funding, because he said it,
``countered the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) expanding
global influence.'' Our current Secretary of State also said,
``We do not have to give foreign aid. We do so because it
furthers our national interests. That's why we give foreign
aid.''
I just wanted to be able to frame that. When I worked at
USAID, I worked at USAID under the Bush Administration. I
worked under a Republican President. I worked under an
administrator there who was appointed by a Republican
President, Andrew Natsios, who was just recently asked, ``Could
you specifically respond to what Elon Musk's functionaries at
the Department of Government Efficiency have done in terms of
actually shutting down USAID?'' And Andrew Natsios said, ``It
is illegal and it is outrageous. They have no right to abolish
an agency, a statutory agency in the Federal Government.''
I just wanted to raise this, because what we are talking
about here is efforts that are trying to end a long-standing,
bipartisan understanding about our strength as a global leader.
What we are also seeing--and this is something that just feels
so personal--is just the demonization of public service. We can
have a debate about foreign aid, but we can do it without
demonizing the people who have sworn an oath to this country,
many of them right now working in difficult and dangerous
places. Some of them do not know how they are going to get back
home right now because of how quickly all of this had been shut
off.
What it really just shakes around the world when I hear
from leaders in other countries is they say, ``What is the
value of the American handshake right now?'' and I think that
has been detrimentally affected and really negatively affected
over the course of the last couple of weeks.
With that I will yield back.
Chairman Paul. Thank you. It has been bandied about that
certain things are illegal, and I think it is worth a little
bit of discussion over that--inspectors general have been let
go, people at the USAID have been let go--and it has been
alleged that this is illegal.
It is actually a little more complicated than that. This
goes all the way back to Andrew Johnson and his fight with
Congress. There was a Tenure of Office Act that was passed, and
it said that he could not even fire members of his Cabinet, and
they were in the same party. The Republicans controlled
Congress, and Johnson, at the time, I guess, had become a
Republican, being Lincoln's Vice President.
It was finally repealed, but there was a big dispute over
if he could even hire members of his Cabinet. Later, in 1926,
in Myers v. United States, the court rules that you really
cannot restrict a President's right to hire and fire their
Cabinet.
Now it has gone beyond that. In 2020 or 2021, the CFPB the
Democrats created this and they did not want it to ever go
away. The funding was supposed to go on forever, and the person
in charge of it was not to be fired. Well, the court ruled that
you cannot do that. You cannot set up an executive agency under
the auspices of the President and say he cannot fire them.
Then there is the question with the inspectors general, and
the Trump administration is challenging it, and I think we have
to go with what the court decides. But there is legislation
saying you cannot fire them. He asserts that under the court
precedence that he can, and so this is in argument. That is
what constitutional law and separation of powers is about. We
will find out whether it is legal or illegal. But at this point
it is an allegation that it is illegal.
With regard to the waste and abuse and the outrageous
things that we are seeing, sure it draws the attention. It
should draw the attention. But there is also the question of
where the money comes from. What we bring in, in tax revenue,
is equal to about four programs--Medicare, Medicaid, Social
Security, and food stamps would soak up all of the revenue.
There is nothing left.
When we vote on a budget, as Congress, for military and
non-military, what is called discretionary spending, which is a
third of all spending, it is all borrowed. Nearly $2 trillion
of what we vote on, it is all borrowed.
This gets to the point that I will ask both of you on
foreign aid. If it is about $40 billion, do you think we could
just get better people over there and they will not do the bad
projects, or do you think maybe they need a smaller number in
order to have an incentive to cut out the waste?
We will start with Dr. Ruger.
Mr. Ruger. Yes, I think you are exactly right. There is
very little incentive for agencies to get lean when the money
keeps coming through the door. In fact, even if you increase
the aid, or the support rather, then why would they change? I
think this is the case in almost every government agency out
there, is that putting it on a diet means that it will actually
work better. When the budgets are bloated, then you see some of
these less-prioritized or less-important projects are not
scrapped or subject to the same type of analysis, in terms of
their benefits relative to their cost that we would like to
see.
One thing I would like to say also is that given the
potential for USAID and the State Department to pursue
different and potentially contradictory goals, it is also good
governance to actually try to find a different architecture
that can make sure that the money that is spent is actually
doing so for a common purpose and achieving a common end, as
opposed to being potentially contradictory here. That is one of
the challenges that I think Secretary Rubio is trying to handle
with this reform that he has already started down the path for.
Chairman Paul. Mr. Shellenberger.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, of course I absolutely agree you
cannot get efficiency if you have a big or growing budget. I
think the other issue is that, what is this money actually for?
I think the fact that they are putting it in State Department
is correct. If this is about our relations with foreign
countries, encouraging the kind of governments we want,
discouraging the kind of governments we do not want--you might
call that regime change--that belongs in State Department.
Even on things that seem innocent, like food aid, there has
been a long literature of academic studies on really big driver
of starvation and hunger in poor countries tends to be war. It
tends to be used as a weapon of war. Countries that are so
vulnerable that they depend on food imports and cannot afford
to replace them if the United States were to end those, those
are countries that have a huge food sustainability problem.
They have problems that go much deeper than just not getting
that month's shipment of food from us. I think if we want to
subsidize American farmers, that is a question that needs to be
discussed, and economists and others can debate that.
But I think this idea that somehow it is good to just dump
food on poor countries has been shown to really be quite
devastating in many cases, undermining the local farmers who
are actually required to make those countries self-sufficient.
I think if we are really concerned about helping poor
countries to develop, then we have to have an eye toward self-
sufficiency and self-reliance and not just endless dependence
on the United States.
Chairman Paul. Apparently I am the last person to vote, and
they really want me to go vote. I am going to go vote, and
nobody is here to object. I am going to leave it open because
there is one more Senator coming, and she is going to gavel it
closed when she gets here, Senator Ernst, and I am going to let
her ask questions for as long as she wants, and she gets to end
it.
But if you would not mind sitting patiently, she wants to
ask a few questions. [Pause.]
Senator Scott [presiding.] All right. If we can start
again. I think Senator Ernst is coming back also.
This is for both of you. How important is it for the
administration agencies to be completely transparent with U.S.
taxpayer funds to ensure it is used to advance U.S. interests?
Mr. Shellenberger. I will say I think it is absolutely
essential at least in terms of the actual development in AID.
Obviously, there are covert operations. We have the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry those out. We have the State
Department that obviously directs foreign policy. But I think
if it is genuinely a charitable project or genuinely aimed at
public health, that should be transparent.
We saw what happened with these huge investments into the
Wuhan Institute of Virology, sort of masked through EcoHealth
Alliance. Huge problems, obviously. If we had known about that,
there probably could have been better regulation and better
governance of it. It is one of the many unintended consequences
of that kind of government secrecy.
Mr. Ruger. Yes. I mean, we talk about these programs being
wasteful, and in many cases they are, I actually think that
there is something potentially more pernicious, which is why I
think shining the light on this and being transparent is so
important, which is that I think, in many cases, these are
purposely designed to try to promote progressive causes abroad,
and that ideally that will have a boomerang effect here at
home. In other words, this is part of a kind of progressive,
global prioritization of different policy ideas. I mean, you
seen this, $5.5 million for LGBTQ advocacy in Jamaica and
Uganda. You see mental health programs for LGBTQ+ youth
advocacy in Venezuela, for example.
This is part of a kind of progressive political campaign. I
think the more and more that is brought to the fore and the
people understand what is going on, then they can have a
legitimate discussion about whether this best supports our
national interests, as opposed to something, I think, that
supports the interests of, again, many people in America but
not the public good, if you will.
Again, shining that light on it, I think, will have that
disinfectant that we have talked about throughout our country's
history.
Senator Scott. So how would you do it? How would you create
more transparency?
Mr. Ruger. One thing is a hearing like this. I think one of
Congress' most important roles, as an overseer of spending, is
to shine a light on things and to call people on the carpet, if
you will. I would bring these people here regularly and ask
them, why are you spending $6 million for Egyptian educational
opportunities in the North Sinai? How does that tier up to our
national interest?
If they have a good answer, great. Everyone has done their
job. But if they cannot explain it in an open forum and look at
the American public and say, look, if you are from Des Moines,
Iowa, we want you, hardworking American, to pay for this
because of X, Y, and Z reasons. The American public should be
able to say, yes, that makes sense. But a lot of these things
we have been seeing just do not. I do not understand why we are
spending $20 million to tailor a program in Iraq through the
Sesame Workshop. How does that support what Secretary Rubio
talked about in terms of our strength, our security, or our
prosperity? It just does not. It does not pass that test. I
think Americans are fed up with that.
Again, we heard about Ronald Reagan praising these
programs, but I am guessing that Ronald Reagan would not be
proud of these programs today.
Mr. Shellenberger. Yes, I agree. I think that the whole
concept of foreign aid needs to be reconceptualized. If it is
part of soft power then it should be done through the State
Department. If it is part of a genuine economic development
initiative it should be focused on the things that we know
drive economic development, including cheap energy,
infrastructure, manufacturing, the ways that all poor countries
rise out of poverty and develop. That is clearly not what it
has been about because it would not be funding these frivolous
projects around the world if it were serious about genuine
economic development.
For me, I think it is an amazing moment, and I think the
fact that it took such dramatic action shows just how burdened
that agency was by all sorts of conflicting agendas. I think it
is a great time for the Congress to recreate an aid function
that is sort of separated from U.S. foreign policy, or at least
from the soft power part of it.
Senator Scott. So in your jobs, how have each of you
figured out how to be heard, because it is hard, right?
Mr. Shellenberger. One of the things that we have realized
is that the way that we have imagined what the news media was
for a long time, it really was not what we thought it was, that
there was a really intense level of control that was being
exercised by the national security state. We saw in the Twitter
Files, and we saw with the Cyber Threat Intelligence League
(CTIL) files, which a whistleblower gave to us, that showed
that you had a former Ministry of Defense contractor from
Britain, you had a Department of Defense (DOD) contractor in
the United States on a kind of limited hangout, describing how
the U.S. Government and British government had really exercised
serious control over the news media since World War II.
That all starts to break apart with the rise of social
media. Social media, at first, was being used to foment regime
change operations in the Middle East in terms of the Arab
Spring, and then in the color revolutions in Eastern Europe.
Then when Trump was elected in 2016, there was really a turning
inward, a turning against the American people for a counter-
populaced effort by the intelligence agencies, as well as by
USAID.
You see them participating in effectively regime change
operations in the United States. That included this revelation
that much of the investigative journalism that USAID had been
funding since around 2008, 2009, through groups like OCCRP and
Internews, were really aimed at gaining control over the
information environments around the world. We would not have
known that without the Twitter Files, which revealed the
censorship industrial complex, seeking to censor millions of
Americans, flagging disfavored information, including accurate
information such as around COVID-19 origins, around the COVID-
19 vaccines.
For me this is the golden age of journalism. People can
actually find sources of information outside of a tiny, narrow
band of sources that we had between World War II and really the
early 2000s, 2010, when social media rose. That is what is
going on here. It has really been the revolt of the public, and
now we see a revolt of the elites demanding that we put the
genie back in the bottle. I do not think long-term it is going
to work out. It really took someone like Elon Musk to unleash
the full potential of social media, and we saw it in the last
election podcasting playing this massive role.
I think it is a revolutionary moment. Get a huge change in
apparently American foreign policy with a huge political
transformation also occurring at the same time of this media
transformation and revolution.
Mr. Ruger. Yes, and to add to that, my institution, the
American Institute for Economic Research, was involved with the
creation of the Great Barrington Declaration. You saw our
institution and the authors of the Great Barrington
Declaration, including, I think, the incoming head of the
National Institute of Health (NIH), being subject to claims of
disinformation and attempts to squelch our voice in trying to
get the message out about different public policy approaches to
how to handle the COVID-19 pandemic.
It is not just happening abroad. It is happening here at
home. Again, I applaud what we have seen with the opening of
Twitter and X, making that much more of an open forum. Again, I
think generally speaking, kind of light is the disinfectant
here.
Senator Scott. We see a lot of money being paid to
researchers to, ``study disinformation.'' Can you paint a
picture of that research can translate to actions to take down
constitutionally protected speech, especially here in the
United States?
Mr. Shellenberger. Sure. I am happy to talk about that,
and, I think you have to understand that social media was first
used by the U.S. Government to foment regime change in the
Middle East and Eastern Europe. After Trump was elected, those
tools were all brought back here, and there was an effort to
create this conspiracy theory that President Trump was somehow
controlled by the Russians. Then with COVID-19 we saw the rise
of basically Department of Homeland Security asking four
separate groups, Graphika, University of Washington, the
Stanford Internet Observatory, and the Atlantic Council, to
create really a cluster of organizations that would create
little committees of experts to flag what they called
misinformation. It was often just disfavored information, often
accurate information, first around the 2020 elections and then
around COVID-19 in 2021, where they actually had a direct
pipeline to this JIRA software system, ticketing system, where
they were able to basically demand directly to Facebook and
Twitter that they take down posts that they thought were
contributing, again, not just to false information but to the
wrong narrative, including true stories of vaccine side effects
that were contributing to vaccine hesitancy.
The good news is that after that was revealed in the
Twitter Files and then Congressman Jim Jordan's committee on
the House side subpoenaed and had witnesses, there was a whole
elaborate process over the last two years, Stanford Internet
Observatory shut down last year, under the weight of evidence
that it was engaged in censorship. I think we have now been
able to push back against a significant amount of it, and
President Trump has obviously signed the Executive Order
supporting free speech.
But I think it was a very dark moment over really the last
10 years, where we saw a whole set of groups that were involved
in regime change operations abroad start to turn those weapons
inward against us.
Senator Scott. Senator Ernst.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR ERNST
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our
witnesses for being here today for this important hearing.
All Americans should be able to take great pride in our
generosity, and the government agencies coordinate aid efforts
should be eager to share the details about how their use of
taxpayer money makes the world a better place.
Yet the hard truth is, as we have seen, USAID has been out
of control for decades. There is no shortage of questionable
USAID projects. For example, a $20 million grant to the Sesame
Workshop nonprofit to create an Iraqi version of Sesame Street.
More than $9 million intended for civilian food and medical
supplies in Syria ended up in the hands of violent terrorists.
And another one, $27 million was designated to so-called
reintegration gift bags, which may even include a Barbie doll,
for deported Central Americans. There was also $68,000 awarded
for dance classes in none other than Wuhan, China.
After being stonewalled by USAID for years, I learned funds
meant for economic relief in Ukraine were instead paying for
Ukrainian models and designers to attend Fashion Weeks in New
York City, London, and Paris.
Mr. Chair, I ask unanimous consent (UC) to enter my
oversight letters\1\ and USAID's responses into the record.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ The oversight letters submitted by Senator Ernst appears in the
Appendix on page 82.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senator Rick Scott. Without objection.
Senator Ernst. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
USAID is notorious for exploiting legal loopholes, as my
COVID-19 origins investigations exposed. By law, all Federal
spending is required to be publicly available on
USAspending.gov. We have known for a while that Dr. Fauci used
NIH funding to finance bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan
Institute of Virology, but it took the watchdog White Coat
Waste Project to expose evidence that USAID was funding it too.
In fact, the bulk of the money came from USAID. Yet no grants
to the Chinese lab appeared on USAspending.gov. It was hidden
from the public through layers of unreported subgrants and
subawards. Thankfully, my push to defund EcoHealth Alliance was
successful, and the group is now barred from receiving U.S.
Government grants.
But this is why my Tracking Receipts to Adversarial
Countries for Knowledge of Spending (TRACKS) Act must become
law, to prevent money being sent to China, the Taliban, or any
other foreign adversary. Every grant recipient must be
disclosed to ensure accountability, and we should not stop
there. My bipartisan Stop Secret Spending Act, introduced with
Ranking Member Peters, would add additional transparency to
Federal spending.
Mr. Shellenberger, I will start with you, please. Why is
USAID so secretive about how it spends billions of taxpayer
dollars? Is it to avoid the public outrage over the waste, or
is there something more nefarious there?
Mr. Shellenberger. Thank you, Senator, and first of all,
thank you for your leadership in bringing transparency and
accountability to USAID and the funding there.
Obviously, this example you just gave of the Wuhan
Institute of Virology is incredible. It appears that the U.S.
Government funded the creation of the virus that caused the
global pandemic. We also know that President Barack Obama had
banned that research, and that Anthony Fauci had created a
workaround to get around that and move that research to the
Wuhan Institute of Virology. Had there been some transparency
about it, I think some questions would have been raised.
One of the claims, of course, that was made right after
Senator Cotton raised the idea that maybe it did leak from a
lab, Washington Post claimed it was a debunked conspiracy
theory. Anybody who had just googled ``virus lab leak'' would
have discovered that there had been years and years, maybe
decades, of news stories about viruses leaking from labs. It is
a very common thing. Of course, it was one of the main reasons
that we wanted to end that risky gain-of-function research
because we knew the high risk of something leaking from a lab.
I think I applaud your work. We need much more transparency
with it. As I mentioned before, I do think that some part of
that motivation may have been to hide regime change operations
that were run by USAID in concert with the State Department. If
you are going to be doing regime change operations, those
belong in the State Department and with the CIA, not in a
charitable organization. Because if you genuinely want people
to trust in vaccines or other public health measures, it is a
terrible thing for them to believe that maybe it is part of
some counter-terrorist operation or some manipulation by the
U.S. Government that has some political motivation or some
regime change motivation. If it is truly charitable support for
things like good causes, then there has to be a firewall
between that and what the CIA and the State Department are
doing.
Senator Ernst. Yes. Transparency, transparency,
transparency. It is so important.
I will continue with you and then, Mr. Ruger, you can add
your thoughts, as well. But absent a forensic audit by the
Trump administration, do you think we would have ever known the
full depth of USAID's spending, or misspending in this case?
Mr. Shellenberger. No. I mean, obviously the Administration
is pursuing a model that Silicon Valley has used for a long
time, which is that you do need to make changes to actually see
what is going on. So yes, no, I think it is an incredible
moment of reform. I wish it were bipartisan. The last time of
serious reform in the United States was, of course, in the mid-
1970s we had the Church Committee hearings, exactly 50 years
ago this year, that were bipartisan, that revealed much of the
abuses of power by the CIA, by the FBI. It led to a set of
reforms, including greater whistleblower protections. I do hope
that Democrats will join you, Senator, in pushing for those
reforms because it is obviously in the interest of all of us,
all Americans.
In most of the past, the FBI has been weaponized against
leftists in the United States. It is only recently that we see
the deep state mostly targeting right-wing populace. But this
sort of commitment, it is an all-American commitment to not
letting the State be abused for political reasons. I think next
time you never know. It could be weaponized against the left
again. I hope that Democrats will join you in making this
renewed push, and I applaud the Republicans for taking up the
mantle of pushing for greater disclosure, greater transparency,
greater accountability.
I just think some overall clarity about what does the
United States want its interaction with the world to be. Are we
still in the period after World War II to today, or do we need
to kind of rebalance our relationship? I think the public voted
for a rebalancing toward a more America First agenda. I also do
not think Americans want to completely withdraw from the world.
But again, I do think that some basic hygiene is in order in
terms of separating out what is genuinely charitable or
development activities from what is regime change, censorship,
disinformation, information control activities.
Senator Ernst. Right. I agree. Thank you
Mr. Ruger, do you have thought there, as well?
Mr. Ruger. Sure. I think what DOGE is doing, really, is a
form of creative destruction, right. It is breaking through the
status quo and getting these issues at the front of the
Americans' minds and the front of the minds of elites here in
Washington.
Too often things continue to kind of be on autopilot, and
it is very hard, as you well know. There are so many issues
that could be focused on and to put them under the microscope
is challenging, even when it is pretty obvious to some of the
experts out there. But how do they get that voice up there?
I think what Elon Musk has been able to do, and again,
through President Trump's leadership, is to make sure that this
does not disappear, that there is sustained attention to it.
That is going to mean that some messiness will occur, right.
You are going to have to put holds on things to make sure that
we are not spending wastefully. I think that, on net, is going
to be valuable as we try to reform our Federal Government,
particularly in light of the fact that we are $36 trillion in
debt.
We are spending my children's money and your children's and
grandchildren's money. We are spending their money now. We
better make sure that if we are going to do that, because
sometimes it is necessary to take out debt, for example, for
war, purposes of fighting wars, that we are doing that for good
reason. That means that we really need to be really kind of, I
think, rinsing out the kind of towel of government spending and
make sure that only what survives is necessary.
Senator Ernst. Thank you. There are so many analogies that
we could use. We are breaking up the boulder of Federal
Government, and there are some gems that we will be able to
pull out of there. But the rest is rubble, and it needs to go
away.
I know from the Chair, Chairman Paul, Senator Johnson,
Senator Lankford, and I have all engaged in these efforts, each
of us, for over a decade now, and attempting to identify the
waste, the fraud within our Federal Government, trying to get
those reforms over the finish line. It was not until we had the
Trump presidency and the appointment of those in the Department
of Government Efficiency with Elon Musk that we actually have
the platform now to get it down. I am really grateful that we
have that opportunity to do that now.
I know I am way over, but we will go ahead and close out.
But I will give you some closing thoughts, as well. I just want
to be clear, as we are talking about this, that there are many
other groups that are supported by USAID that are doing great
work. As I said, there are some gems amongst the rubble. There
are programs that help us care for orphans. There are programs
that help us care for people with HIV. Those are important
programs. But imagine how much more good work could be done if
we used those dollars that instead ended up enriching
terrorists and mad scientists in adversarial countries.
So after keeping its spending records hidden from Congress
and taxpayers, USAID employees are now protesting the review of
the agency's records by President Trump's Department of
Government Efficiency. It is pretty outrageous. It is no
surprise that Washington insiders are more upset at DOGE for
trying to stop wasteful spending than at USAID for misusing
their constituents' tax dollars. The question that we really
should be asking at this point is not why USAID's grants are
being scrutinized, but why it took so long.
I want to thank both of you very much for being here today
and sharing your thoughts. I think it was a very important
Committee meeting here in the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee.
With that, I do want to thank your witnesses for joining us
here today to share their testimony and their expertise with
the Committee. The record for this hearing will remain open for
7 days, until 6 p.m. on Friday, February 20, 2025, for the
submission of statements and questions for the record.
The hearing is now adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
[all]