Elon Musk stirred up a hornet’s nest by investigating some very smelly USAID payments.
$8.2 Million Went to Politico, Where’s $32.5 Billion Going?
Yahoo!News reports USAID is on Trump and Musk’s cost-cutting list. Here’s where the foreign aid agency spends its money.
- USAID distributed nearly $32.5 billion in aid in 2024, mainly to Africa and the Middle East.
- Many Republicans argue USAID is wasteful, while some Democrats say shuttering the agency is unconstitutional.
- Proposed USAID cuts may reduce aid to Ukraine, Jordan, and Ethiopia.
On Tuesday evening, USAID staff received an email saying that starting Friday, “all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally, with the exception of designated personnel responsible for mission-critical functions, core leadership, and specially designated programs.” The email added that essential staff would be notified on Thursday afternoon and that the agency would begin moving international staff back to the US within 30 days.
In 2024, the US donated over $5.4 billion in aid to Ukraine through USAID, most of which was through macroeconomic support to assist in its war with Russia.
The agency gave over $1.23 billion to Jordan last year, mostly through a cash transfer to the government in exchange for the country cooperating with US interests, such as providing intelligence support and housing Syrian refugees.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk have attacked USAID and other foreign aid programs over the past few weeks. Musk called USAID a “criminal organization” in a post on X, while Trump told reporters on Sunday that USAID was “run by a bunch of radical lunatics.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was named USAID’s acting director on Monday and has advocated for foreign assistance agencies to be more transparent about how aid is being implemented. Rubio said the Trump administration was reviewing each program to see if it makes the US safer, stronger, and more prosperous.
Lawmakers, Legal Experts Warn Shuttering USAID Is Unconstitutional
The Hill reports Lawmakers, Legal Experts Warn Shuttering USAID Is Unconstitutional
Over the weekend, agents of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) entered the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) facility. Staff started getting shut out of internal systems Sunday and were told not to come into the headquarters at the Ronald Reagan Building on Monday.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who leads DOGE, said his team took a “wood chipper” to USAID over the weekend. He has for days railed against USAID on his social media platform X and levied accusations of corruption against the independent agency that has provided humanitarian and development assistance to countries around the world for more than 60 years.
During an event hosted on X early Monday morning, Musk said that USAID is a “ball of worms” that is “beyond repair,” and that the president agreed to shut it down. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Monday that he had taken over as acting administrator of USAID amid speculation that Trump may try to merge the stripped-down agency into the State Department.
“Musk, and perhaps Congress, need to recognize that this isn’t the same as a corporate takeover of another business. Since USAID is an independent agency, only an act of Congress can abolish it. Even shutting down the agency, but just leaving it on the books, should trigger legal challenges,” said James DeSimone, an employment and civil rights attorney at V. James DeSimone Law.
Critics have said that since President John F. Kennedy created USAID using an executive order in 1961, President Trump can do away with it via executive order. But that’s not the full story.
Congress later passed a law, the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, codifying USAID as an independent agency, according to an analysis published Monday by the Congressional Research Service.
DeSimone also said career civil service employees are not the same as political appointees, who serve at the pleasure of the president and may be asked to resign or be dismissed at any time.
“They have due process rights and legal protections designed to prevent such unlawful political retaliation,” DeSimone said. “And you cannot just put thousands of these people on leave without following federal regulations and providing notice. How long would they be on leave? Because long-term paid leave, without an end, is the same as illegal termination. Litigation is inevitable, even if Congress acts.”
Where Does Mish Stand?
- I side with Musk: “USAID is a ball of worms and should be shut down.”
- I also side DeSimone: “Only an act of Congress can abolish it.”
- But Congress should abolish USAID.
- Meanwhile, someone should review every payment.
- Payments that are not explicitly authorized by an act of Congress should be canceled.
Swindled Taxpayers
Fox News reports ‘Swindled the American taxpayer’: New House GOP internal memo rips Dem USAID uproar
An internal memo being circulated to House Republicans is urging lawmakers to argue that President Donald Trump’s handling of foreign aid is “already paying dividends” and that the Biden administration spent that money on initiatives like “a transgender opera in Colombia through the State Department.”
The memo urged Republicans to argue Trump’s freeze on foreign aid “is needed because it’s nearly impossible to evaluate foreign aid programs when they are on autopilot.”
“A 90-day review period, with commonsense waivers for truly life-threatening situations, is the only way to give the State Department the time needed to root out waste,” it said.
The State Department issued a freeze on most federal foreign aid days after Trump was sworn into office. Within recent days, Trump and Elon Musk’s “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) have also led a significant scale-back of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), including making Secretary of State Marco Rubio its acting head.
But Republicans like Mast, a top Trump ally, argue that the moves are justified to evaluate what money is actually going to foreign assistance that aligns with Trump’s agenda.
“America’s foreign aid is not charity and its goal should not be to advance DEI abroad,” the committee wrote on X on Monday.
Ridiculous USAID Spending Items
- $39,652 to host seminars at the Edinburgh International Book Festival on gender identity and racial equality through the State Department
- $425,622 to help Indonesian coffee companies become more climate and gender friendly through USAID.
- $14 million in cash vouchers for migrants at the southern border through the State Department
- $446,700 to promote the expansion of atheism in Nepal through the State Department
- $32,000 for an LGBTQ-centered comic book in Peru
Did Congress approve any of that? You can hide a lot of sleaze in $32.5 billion.
Canceling Payments to Politico
Fox News reports White House Announces DOGE Is Canceling Payments to Politico
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Wednesday that Politico has been receiving funds from the U.S. government that will dry up as President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) cracks down on spending.
Leavitt was asked about reports that “media outlets” will be impacted by Elon Musk’s plan to cut funding for U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Politico received at least $8.2 million from the U.S. government in recent years, with $44,000 of that coming from USAID, according to USAspending.gov.
“Upon coming out here to the briefing room, I was made aware of the funding from USAID to media outlets, including Politico, who I know has a seat in this room, and I can confirm that the more than $8 million taxpayer dollars that have gone to, essentially, subsidizing subscriptions to Politico on the American taxpayers dime, will no longer be happening,” Leavitt said.
“The DOGE team is working on canceling those payments now,” she continued. “This is a whole government effort to assure that we are going line by line when it comes to the federal government’s books.”
The Fox News headline is incorrect. DOGE cannot cancel payments. It cannot do anything but make recommendations.
Politico Staff Unpaid?
The amount of discussion over this on X is quite amazing. I try to stay out of things unless I have a decent handle.
After a delay, Politico employees have been paid.
Many Politico employees typically receive direct deposit every other Tuesday, but this week they woke up and noticed the funds didn’t hit their account. An employee told Fox News Digital that management didn’t communicate about the issue until 9 a.m., when they chalked it up as a “technical error.”
According to the employee, many concerns went unaddressed as panicked Politico staffers expressed worry about paying bills and being hit with overdraft fees from their banks. Politico’s management eventually insisted it was a technical error between the bank and payroll providers and that everyone would be paid by the end of the day.
The employees were eventually paid, but it didn’t appear as “pending” until after 5 p.m. ET and didn’t clear until Wednesday morning, according to the impacted staffer. The employee said there is internal concern that the late paychecks and the government cracking down on excess spending were somehow connected.
A Politico spokesperson provided the following statement: “Employees were paid yesterday, there was a technical error that was remedied in a matter of hours.”
Politico did not immediately respond to a series of follow-up questions about whether or not Musk’s crackdown on government spending had anything to do with the delayed payment.
Failure to comment seems damning. And what the hell is with this?
While Politico did receive payments from USAID for its costly subscription service, it was hardly the government agency that has given the most money to Politico. The Department of Health and Human Services leads the way, with $1.37 million followed by $1.35 million from the Department of the Interior, according to USAspending.gov.
The Department of Energy has given Politico $1.29 million, the Department of Agriculture has given $552,024 and the Department of Commerce has given $485,572.
The Politico staffer said employee concerns quickly shifted from being angry about the late payroll to anxieties over Musk’s post.
Politico did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding Musk’s post or comments from the White House.
Subscription Service
Social media erupted with claims that the government has been funding Politico, but others pointed out that Politico has an expensive subscription service that is critical for many government employees. Base subscriptions are typically between $12,000 and $15,000 for three users.
While Politico did receive small amounts of cash for subscriptions from government agencies under prior administrations, it appears to have skyrocketed during the Biden administration, according to USAspening.gov.
Politico Payments Over Time
You can search for stuff yourself. Here’s a direct US Spending Link to the above chart.
The 2024 fiscal year for the United States federal government began on October 1, 2023 and ended on September 30, 2024.
Hmm. Fancy that. It seems all of this spending was under Biden.
Why was that?
Ex-Politico reporters reveal editors quashed, slow-walked negative Biden stories ‘with no explanation’
Please consider Ex-Politico reporters reveal editors quashed, slow-walked negative Biden stories ‘with no explanation’
‘Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop,’ ex-Politico reporter Marc Caputo recalled.
Caputo was referencing Politico’s report, which had the headline “Hunter Biden story is Russian disinfo, dozens of former intel officials say,” on the open letter signed by 51 intelligence officials declaring that the material from Hunter Biden’s laptop had “all the earmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.”
“I was covering Biden at the time, and I remember coming to my editor and saying, ‘Hey, we need to write about the Hunter Biden laptop.’ And I was told this came from on high at Politico: Don’t write about the laptop, don’t talk about the laptop, don’t tweet about the laptop. And the only thing Politico wound up writing was that piece that called it disinformation, which charitably could be called misinformation, at the least.”
Caputo also shed light on a report he had written in 2019 that stemmed from opposition research from a rival Democratic campaign of then-candidate Joe Biden regarding a “tax lien” of Hunter’s pertaining to his work at Ukrainian energy company Burisma.
“And I wrote what would have been a classic story saying, you know, ‘The former vice president’s son was slapped with a big tax lien for the period of time that he worked for this controversial Ukrainian oil concern, or natural gas concern, which is haunting his father on the campaign trail.’ That story was killed by the editors,’ Caputo said. “And they gave no explanation for that either. So that the general experience- obviously the public doesn’t know about those things.”
When reached out by Fox News Digital, Caputo provided video showing the original Word document created May 8, 2019 of his tax lien reporting on Hunter Biden.
Is the price for silence $8.2 million?
Just Scratching the Surface
I side with the above viewpoint.
However, please note $8 million here or there or even $100 million here or there won’t do much for a $2 trillion deficit.
While I want to save every penny, we need some really big cleanup efforts and I highly doubt they are coming.
Related Posts
December 27, 2024: Can DOGE Cut $2 Trillion Out of $1 Trillion? What About Revenue?
The answer to the first question is obvious. So let’s discuss what’s reasonable.
January 10, 2024: Elon Musk Admits DOGE Can’t Find $2 Trillion In Budget Cuts
Anyone with an ounce of common sense knew that wasn’t possible. He won’t find $1 trillion either.
I appreciate Musk, DOGE, and others looking. But we need to go well beyond millions of dollars into the tens and hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts.
Regardless, Democrats are in a tizzy over this reporting and a look at some of the nonsense that was funded shows why.
The Democrats have make charges that Musk has illegal access to data. That’s a hoot because everyone can search the payments database.
I also see reports that Musk has no legal authority to act. That’s correct, but all he is doing is make recommendations. So that’s a bunch of Democrat hot air as well.
So Musk needs to keep looking and you can too. Here is a Search Link to USASpending.Gov.
I am trying to do a data download and it’s taking hours. If the reason is thousands of other people are attempting the same thing, that’s great.
Musk proposed putting this on Blockchain. What a waste of time that would be. How about speeding up the access so everyone can look at where we are spending $32.5 billion.