Tag: foreign aid

While Trump sharply cuts foreign aid, past abuses from the Obama-Biden era keep piling up

Ahalf billion dollar fraud and bribery scheme conducted by a USAID contract officer and three conspirators that went undetected for a decade. American-bought equipment stolen by a terror group. Millions of dollars in food that spoiled in warehouses. These are but a few of the wasteful — if not corrupt ways — millions of USAID dollars have been lost.

While President Donald Trump has sharply cut foreign aid from the auspices of USAID and shifted what remains to the State Department, the massive abuse of America’s generosity to foreign countries over a decade of Obama-Biden governance is coming into clearer focus. 

A Just the News review of audits and investigations of the USAID and State Department inspectors general over the last year chronicles billions of dollars lost, stolen, defrauded, or wasted because of mismanagement or years of neglect.

In many cases, tax money was given away without regard to whether the recipients could responsibly spend it or could keep it out of the hands of terrorists or other enemies, the audits show.

For instance, the USAID inspector general recently revealed that the federal government kept funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) despite evidence that 101 of its employees or associates had ties to terror groups like Hamas, including: 

  •  A deputy school principal serving as an al-Qassam deputy company commander in the Ain Gallout/5th infantry battalion.
  • A deputy school principal serving as squad leader for the Khan Younis Brigade/2nd infantry battalion. 
  • A teacher serving as squad leader in Hamas’ military security department/intelligence unit who tracked assignment of explosive devices.
  • A teacher serving as a platoon commander of the Central Brigade/Al Quds 2nd Battalion.
  • A math & computer teacher with ties to an al-Qassam intelligence squad.
  • A teacher with expertise as a sniper for Hamas.
  • A teacher and Hamas soldier with orders to bring two anti-tank missiles to a prescribed location during the October 7 terror attacks
  • A school principal who served as an operative of the Hamas East Jabaliya Battalion, and coordinated communications with other suspected Hamas members during the October 7, 2023 atrocities committed against Israel 

Similarly, the same USAID watchdog revealed that the Yemen-based terror Ansar Allah — also known as the Houthis—walked away with about $122,000 worth of U.S. government-funded equipment from a USAID-funded aid organization.

$17 million of the $21 million of food aid stored in warehouses was not distributed to emergency food providers. Some good-intentioned aid also was wasted by bad management and logistics, the audits show.

For instance, about $17 million of the $21 million of food aid stored in Djibouti warehouses was not distributed to emergency food providers.

That included $10 million of goods at risk of reaching its best-used-by date prior to arriving at its intended destination. About $2.9 million of food aid had already spoiled due to significant packaging defects by the vendor, investigators reported.

To make matters worse, taxpayers incurred at least nearly $500,000 in storage costs for spoiled, unusable food. And another $1.5 million in food became infested because USAID “did not enforce temperature control requirements,” eventually requiring additional fumigation costs, the memos stated.

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Beyond the Ukraine War, NATO and Europe Are Still Dependent on the US

The Ukraine war has underscored NATO and Europe’s continued reliance on the United States for defense. Ukraine’s air defense is running short of Patriot interceptors, and Europe has not been able to close the gap on its own. President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters that Ukraine has only about a tenth of the interceptors it needs from the United States.

The Chatham House reports that the Ukraine Contact Group of European states pledged $4 billion for Ukrainian air defense in June 2026, including more than $1 billion earmarked for Patriots, but notes that it remains doubtful the United States will supply the missiles. Europe does not build the Patriot system itself, and Ukrainian-made Patriots are not a near-term solution. Analysts cited by Chatham House estimate it would take 18 to 24 months just to establish a pilot production line domestically.

European governments have responded by purchasing American-made systems for Ukraine rather than replacing them with European production. Germany pledged more than $2 billion in military aid, including Patriot interceptors, while Estonia, Finland, Lithuania, and Sweden joined the fast-track purchasing program. However, the arrangement still relies on American manufacturing capacity rather than an independent European supply.

Four years into the war, Europe has not built the domestic capacity to cover its own air defense needs, let alone Ukraine’s, leaving Kyiv’s interceptor stocks dependent on U.S.-made weapons.

Beneath the missile shortfall sits a deeper dependency: NATO lacks sufficient independent capacity in satellite intelligence and reconnaissance, strategic airlift, air-to-air refueling, command-and-control infrastructure, and nuclear deterrence, relying heavily on the United States for all five. The NATO Intelligence Fusion Centre, based at RAF Molesworth in the UK, brings together NATO and partner-nation analysts to produce shared intelligence assessments on military threats and terrorism for the alliance as a whole.

Though housed in Britain, the Fusion Centre was established with the United States as the “framework nation,” meaning American intelligence architecture and staffing underpin an institution that operates as a multinational NATO body. The Supreme Allied Commander Europe, who oversees NATO’s intelligence and surveillance forces, has by convention always been an American general.

A Kiel Institute report, produced with Bruegel, states that Europe depends heavily on the US not only for deployable troops but also for ‘strategic enablers,’ pointing to continued reliance on American systems for critical modern military capabilities even as European defense budgets have surged. Sven Biscop of the Egmont Royal Institute told Defense News that Europe is “almost completely dependent” on U.S. intelligence for satellite capability and everything that goes with it, adding that closing the gap will take time. The United States operated 246 military satellites as of 2023, compared with 49 for all of European NATO combined, led by France with 15, according to the same reporting.

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Woman Who Defrauded USAID-Funded Nonprofit Avoids Prison, Settles Civil Claims For $160,000

A Maryland woman has agreed to pay the U.S. government $160,000 to resolve civil allegations that she submitted false claims for payment, following her earlier criminal conviction for defrauding a nonprofit that received USAID funding.

Carleena Graham, 59, formerly served as vice president of human resources at World Learning, a nonprofit that received millions of dollars in grants and contracts from both the U.S. Agency for International Development and the State Department. According to the USAID Office of Inspector General, she orchestrated a scheme that drained roughly $425,000 from the organization between about 2016 and mid-2022. Of that total, approximately $272,500 came directly or partially from U.S. government funds.

Graham arranged for goods and services to be delivered to Washington-area nonprofits where she held positions or had relationships, then directed World Learning to pay for them through electronic transfers from its accounts. She falsified vendor invoices to create the appearance that World Learning itself had received the items. She also used the organization’s credit cards to cover expenses for those outside entities.

Federal authorities charged her with one count of wire fraud in May 2023. She pleaded guilty and, in March 2024, received a sentence of four years’ probation, an order to pay $425,000 in restitution, and a three-year debarment from receiving U.S. government funds. Her plea agreement estimated an advisory sentencing range of 27 to 33 months’ imprisonment.

In July 2026 she entered a separate civil settlement with the Department of Justice under the False Claims Act, agreeing to the $160,000 payment. That agreement closes a joint investigation by the USAID and State Department Offices of Inspector General. The government’s announcement notes that the claims resolved by the civil settlement are allegations only and that there has been no determination of liability.

Graham’s is not the only USAID-linked fraud case to reach resolution. As we reported in June of last year, former USAID contracting officer Roderick Watson and three corporate executives pleaded guilty over a decade-long bribery scheme spanning at least 14 prime contracts worth more than $550 million. Prosecutors said Watson accepted bribes valued at more than $1 million, including cash, laptops, tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club wedding, and down payments on two residential mortgages. He faced a maximum of 15 years. The two contractors involved, Apprio and Vistant, admitted criminal liability and entered deferred prosecution agreements. In a separate case, a British national who worked on a USAID-funded power distribution program in Pakistan was extradited after more than two years, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced to time served for a kickback scheme that cost the program almost $100,000.

The settlement lands amid broader scrutiny of USAID’s oversight of foreign-aid spending. Inspector general memoranda issued in 2025 flagged weaknesses, including limited visibility into sub-recipients, resistance from some international partners in sharing misconduct information, and incomplete reporting of potential fraud by organizations that received agency funds. World Learning was among the recipients of USAID programming during the period of the scheme.

USAID was formally dissolved on July 1, 2025, with its remaining functions absorbed into the State Department.

Also, the DNC is oddly out of money.

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REPORT: Harvard Tops List of American Universities Taking Money From Foreign Countries – Including China

When it comes to accepting cash from foreign countries, including China, Harvard tops the list of American universities.

This is a major concern. Some might even call it a national security issue. China steals millions in intellectual property from the United States every year and higher education gives them direct access.

At the end of Trump’s first term, Senate Republicans began to focus heavily on this issue. Now they are looking at it again and Senator Tom Cotton is leading the charge.

FOX News reports:

Harvard tops nation in foreign cash haul as Cotton demands probe into China funding

One Ivy League institution has taken in more money from foreign countries, including China, than any other university in the country.

The U.S. Department of Education has, for years, compiled a list of federally funded universities that have taken in funding from abroad. The Trump administration sought to revamp the agency’s online reporting portal, and, in doing so, it has shown that one institution, Harvard University, has scored more foreign funding than any other college in the country.

Harvard is in the crosshairs of Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., for its ties to China and other foreign nations because of the reams of outside cash the university has taken in. And the Senate Republican, who chairs the Senate Intelligence Committee, wants Education Secretary Linda McMahon to open an investigation into China’s cash flow into higher education.

“I remain concerned that millions in additional transactions with sanctioned Chinese entities may not have been reported,” Cotton wrote. “Therefore, I encourage additional scrutiny of financial ties between American universities and Communist China.”…

Cotton noted that since the portal was relaunched in January, reporting data has shown that federally funded universities accepted more than $6.8 billion from “Communist China — including more than $300 million from sanctioned entities.”

Cotton is right to go after them for this.

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“USA Isn’t A PiggyBank For Europe”: Trump Launches Section 301 Probe Into EU Over Big Tech Fines

Trump Says US Begins Section 301 Investigation on Europe 

President Trump wrote on Truth Social that the US will launch a Section 301 investigation into the European Union for “robbing American companies, in turn, the American Taxpayer.” 

Trump said Brussels is using America as a “PIGGYBANK” by fining Big Tech companies billions and billions of dollars.

Trump listed the technology companies that have been fined a combined billions of dollars:

After having fined Apple, for no reason at all, 15 Billion Dollars, Meta, 3 Billion Dollars, Amazon 2.5 Billion Dollars, and many others, we have just been informed that Google, a truly advanced and amazing group, has been fined yet another 1 Billion Dollars, without explanation. This brings the Google total to over 18 Billion Dollars!

Trump continued:

This illegal and highly discriminatory practice started at these high levels during the first year of the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration, but it’s not going to continue during the Trump Administration.

He added:

The United States of America is not a “PIGGYBANK” for Europe, nor will we allow it to be!

Please let this TRUTH serve to represent that we will immediately initiate a 301 Investigation into the practice of “ROBBING” American Companies and, in turn, the American Taxpayer.

The European Union will pay a very big price for this illegal and highly unethical conduct, which I have consistently warned them about.

The penalties will be entirely reversed and, we anticipate, a substantial TARIFF to be placed on them at the earliest possible moment.

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Report: Ilhan Omar’s Sister Incorporated Her $20 Million USAID-Linked Consulting Firm Using the Exact Same Home Address as ‘Feeding Our Future’ Scandal

Another stunning connection has emerged between Rep. Ilhan Omar’s family and the sprawling Feeding Our Future fraud scandal that robbed American taxpayers of hundreds of millions of dollars intended to feed needy children.

Omar’s sister, Sahra Noor, registered her consulting company at a Minnesota residence connected through business records to several major figures in the Feeding Our Future operation, according to an investigation by The Daily Wire.

Noor founded Grit Partners Consulting, a health and leadership consultancy focused largely on projects in Africa.

Noor’s website claims that she has “secured more than $20 million in funding for health initiatives” and consulted on projects backed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, USAID, GAVI, and the World Bank.

The website does not say that Grit Partners itself received $20 million from USAID. Rather, Noor claims to have secured more than $20 million for health initiatives while consulting on projects supported by multiple agencies and organizations, including USAID. Noor’s website

But it is the address used to incorporate her company that is now raising serious questions.

According to The Daily Wire’s investigation, Grit Partners was registered at a home on Hyacinth Way in Lakeville, Minnesota.

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AP post on USAID cuts backfires as critics question taxpayer-funded Nepal transgender jobs

An Associated Press social media post about transgender aid workers in Nepal turning to sex work after losing their jobs due to U.S. foreign aid cuts sparked a wave of conservative backlash, with critics arguing the video made the case for defunding USAID rather than saving it.

The AP post said that in Nepal, where “a conservative culture leaves openly transgender people with few legal job options,” around 100 LGBTQ aid workers left jobless by U.S. funding cuts had turned to sex work to survive. An accompanying video focused on Rubi Lama, a former HIV outreach worker who said USAID-funded programs had provided free condoms, lubricant and HIV-prevention medication before the cuts.

“When USAID funding was there, condoms were free, lubricant was also distributed … for free,” Lama said in the video, adding that HIV treatments, including PrEP, were also available without cost. “But, now it is gone.”

The framing quickly drew criticism from conservatives who said the story raised the opposite question: why American taxpayers were funding those programs in the first place.

Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, was among the conservatives who argued the AP report made the opposite point from the one intended.

“Our tax dollars no longer fund employment for transgender Nepalese sex workers,” Gill wrote on X. “Thank you for reminding us why defunding USAID was long overdue.”

“Wow very grateful that my tax dollars are no longer funding a bunch of random trannies in Asia,” mocked Daily Wire host Matt Walsh “Is that the point you were trying to make or did you expect us to be somehow sad about this?”

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US Suspends Sending Funds to Virgin Islands Housing Authority, Citing Corruption

The U.S. government moved on July 20 to suspend funding for the U.S. Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority after investigators uncovered what officials called widespread corruption, leaving residents still struggling to rebuild from the twin Category 5 hurricanes that slammed the territory nearly a decade ago.

Housing Secretary Scott Turner announced the suspension, saying an investigation by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) found “widespread financial mismanagement, inadequate fraud controls, false certifications and improper payments.” The probe remains ongoing.

Nine years after Congress approved $1.9 billion in disaster recovery money, the authority has spent just $570 million, representing less than one-third of the total.

“This failure has, to date, deprived Virgin Islanders of roughly $1.3 billion worth of assistance that Congress intended them to have,” the department stated in a July 20 letter to the head of the Virgin Islands Housing Finance Authority.

The letter went further, declaring that the authority’s “record demonstrates that it is an abysmal steward of taxpayer funds.”

The authority did not immediately return a request for comment.

The numbers show a stalled recovery. Investigators found that the authority completed only two of 95 planned single-family rental rehabilitation projects and none of 329 single- and multi-family housing projects. As of May, it had spent just 2 percent of its electrical grid recovery funding. At the same time, more than half the grant money set aside for administrative costs had already been spent.

The authority also sought $6.2 million in disaster-related funds that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had already paid.

Turner accused officials on social media of prioritizing “kickbacks over helping families recover from disasters.”

The authority’s former chief operating officer, Darin Richardson, who oversaw disaster recovery programs, is currently in federal prison after convictions on fraud and money-laundering charges. According to Turner, that official inflated a lumber contract meant to rebuild hurricane-damaged homes from $3 million to $4.5 million, took a $107,000 kickback, “and let the lumber rot in the sun, rendering it useless—a waste of taxpayer funds.”

In February, the executive director of the housing authority, Eugene Jones Jr., resigned as local legislators pressed questions about $4.2 million that remained untapped with a September spending deadline approaching. Virgin Islands State Sen. Kurt Vialet accused the former director of “just sitting there with a smug look.”

“The Housing Finance Authority is not building. You can’t be upset at senators being frustrated,” Vialet was quoted as saying by the St. Thomas Source, a local news site.

Hurricane Irma, a Category 5 storm, struck the U.S. Virgin Islands in September 2017. Roughly two weeks later, Hurricane Maria, also a Category 5, hit St. Croix. The territory has yet to fully recover.

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Trump Greenlights 30-Year U.S.-Saudi Nuclear Cooperation Deal, Positioning American Companies to Lead Saudi Civilian Nuclear Development

President Donald Trump has formally approved a landmark 30-year nuclear cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, clearing the way for U.S. support of the kingdom’s civilian nuclear energy program and deepening one of Washington’s most important strategic partnerships in the Middle East.

The agreement, valued at tens of billions of dollars, positions American companies as the primary partners in developing Saudi Arabia’s nuclear infrastructure while limiting opportunities for competitors such as China and Russia.

According to U.S. officials and multiple reports, the accord could also allow Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its own territory under a civilian nuclear framework—a provision that has already sparked debate among lawmakers and nonproliferation experts.

President Trump reportedly approved the agreement late last week. It is expected to be formally signed on Wednesday by U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Saudi Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman.

The pact builds on negotiations completed in late 2025 and follows commitments made during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s visit to Washington. It establishes the legal framework for U.S. assistance in constructing nuclear power plants, developing supporting infrastructure, and transferring civilian nuclear technology to the kingdom.

Supporters describe the agreement as a major geopolitical victory that reinforces the U.S.-Saudi alliance while ensuring that American companies—not Chinese or Russian state-backed firms—lead one of the world’s largest emerging nuclear energy projects.

The most controversial aspect of the agreement is its reported allowance for Saudi Arabia to pursue uranium enrichment within its civilian nuclear program.

Previous U.S. nuclear cooperation agreements often required partner nations to permanently renounce uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing—the so-called “gold standard” of nonproliferation. Reports indicate that this agreement adopts a more flexible approach, incorporating safeguards designed to prevent military use while stopping short of requiring the full implementation of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) Additional Protocol, which provides the agency with broader inspection authority.

Administration officials maintain that the agreement includes sufficient protections to ensure the program remains exclusively peaceful. Critics, however, argue that relaxing long-standing U.S. standards could weaken global nonproliferation efforts.

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Stop the Presses! Congress Denies Netanyahu Something He Asked For!

“I want to stop American aid,” Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on June 30. “It’s like welfare; I don’t want it.”

Usually, Netanyahu gets anything he demands from Uncle Sugar. But on July 15, the US House of Representatives voted, 314-104 against even partially granting his wish.

Every Republican except Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and more than half of Democrats, voted down an amendment that would have removed $3.3 billion in “Foreign Military Financing” aid from the National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations Act.

What’s up with that?

Was Netanyahu perhaps a wee bit disingenuous in his public request, passing word through back channels that he didn’t really mean it?

Is US Congress more “pro-Israeli” than Netanyahu himself, or perhaps just so addicted to spending that they can’t bear to cut anything at all, even if the recipient doesn’t want it?

Some combination of the above?

This may be the first time I’ve ever found myself in agreement with Benjamin Netanyahu on anything.

Well, partial agreement, anyway.

US aid to Israel isn’t “like welfare.”

It IS welfare.

What does the US regime in return for its billions of dollars per year? Two things:

  1. A way of re-routing tax money to crony “defense contractors” with Israel as the cut-out to obscure the  domestic end of the corporate welfare pipeline; and
  2. Dragged into a Middle Eastern garrison ethno-state’s every conflict with other regional powers — powers which substantially differ from Israel mainly in ethnicity, prevailing religion, and actually having some oil to make the entanglement worthwhile.

Don’t give me the “liberal democracy” stuff. The Israeli regime censors the press, bans political parties it doesn’t like, confines millions of Arabs to apartheid-style “homelands” as rightsless, non-voting serfs under Israeli rule, and just passed a law declaring that theological studies in one, and only one, religion are “fundamental” to its existence and thus deserving of exemption from the compulsory military hitch mere “secular” Jews serve. Politically, the main difference between Israel and Iran is that in Iran, Jews are guaranteed at least one seat in parliament.

Some “pro-Israel” — and “pro-US-aid-to-Israel” — people I talk with love to inform me that Israel has a longer average lifespan, a lower infant mortality rate, and a lower homicide rate (excluding the  Palestinians ruled by, and murdered by, Israeli troops) than the US.

That doesn’t strike me as the “gotcha” they seem to think. Could those billions in aid possibly have anything to do with the statistical differences? Every dollar in US aid is a dollar more the Israeli regime gets to spend on healthcare and police salaries instead of on weapons to power its expansionist foreign policy.

This time, Congress should have given Netanyahu what he said he wanted.

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