Entrenched bureaucrats within USAID and prior administrations have created a labyrinth of sub-grants and sub-sub-grants through which money flows nearly unchecked.
By Gregg Roman, Middle East Forum
The world should shudder to discover that America’s foreign aid—long intended to uplift those in need overseas—has instead nourished extremists who despise the United States.
On February 26, I appeared before the House Oversight Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) to expose evidence of these betrayals.
Far from a mere policy dispute, the misuse of U.S. assistance I documented underscores the magnitude of the negligence and, in certain instances, possible criminal collusion within our humanitarian apparatus.
During the hearing, which featured pointed exchanges between subcommittee Chairwoman Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Ranking Member Melanie Stansbury (D-N.M.), it became clear that certain federal programs, especially those under the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), have strayed far from their original mission.
More than once, the session erupted in arguments over whether the Biden administration’s policies had inadvertently or deliberately financed radical agendas across the globe.
Witnesses included policy analysts, a journalist, and former federal officials.
Stansbury lamented what she called “carnage,” “gutting,” and “global realignment” allegedly forced by the new administration’s approach to foreign assistance.
Nevertheless, as the hearing progressed, a common thread emerged from multiple testimonies: Federal foreign aid has funded an array of extremist-aligned groups overseas—often at odds with American interests.
Greene underscored that the subcommittee would consider criminal referrals if it emerged that U.S. aid had directly abetted terrorist attacks on Americans, declaring that “if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans, then this committee will be making criminal referrals.” Such a stance highlights how severe these findings are.
For decades, the American tradition of foreign aid has been grounded in moral responsibility and strategic ambition. The United States believed it was helping to fight poverty, foster stability, and keep potential adversaries at bay.
However, the hearing and subsequent revelations confirm what the Middle East Forum’s research has shown for years: Entrenched bureaucrats within USAID and prior administrations have created a labyrinth of sub-grants and sub-sub-grants through which money flows nearly unchecked.
Billions of dollars have been lumped under a category called “miscellaneous foreign awardees,” thwarting public scrutiny. Supposed vetting mechanisms exist, but they are poorly enforced or subverted by an ideological agenda.
Whistleblowers have identified repeated “expedited approvals” that circumvent standard checks if an official or NGO manager believes that it serves an urgent political or social end.
During the hearing, witnesses repeatedly stressed that it is not merely an issue of waste or taxpayer dollars going to unhelpful programs. It is also about money flowing to activist campaigns that the average voter never sanctioned and, more ominously, about a pipeline that has financed entities open to anti-American militancy.
Over the years, small sums have reportedly funded groups that praise, coordinate with, or even serve as adjuncts to Hamas, Hezbollah, and al-Qaeda offshoots. That is not rumor. Evidence from public records and subcommittee testimony strongly indicates that such arrangements occurred.
According to a Senate Finance Committee report, the evangelical charity World Vision has received nearly $2 billion in USAID grants—and facilitated a sub-grant to the Islamic Relief Agency, an al-Qaeda group designated for terrorist financing.
A whistleblower tried halting the payment, but higher-ups ram-med it through. A second case involves Helping Hand for Relief and Development, which took a USAID grant after openly working with the terrorists behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Even though the inspector general of USAID had already flagged that group, there were few consequences, and more money flowed.
Another striking case involves Bayader, a Gaza-based charity that has received at least $900,000 in U.S. funding since 2016. Bayader operates in Hamas-controlled territory and openly collaborates with Hamas officials, including holding joint events with Hamas leaders.
Similarly, the Unlimited Friends Association, another Gaza group, received U.S. support despite paying stipends to families of “martyrs” (Hamas terrorists) and having a director who publicly called for “cleansing” Jews from holy sites.
If private citizens or organizations knowingly funded terror groups, they would face prosecution. However, bureaucrats or NGO executives evade accountability by invoking humanitarian intentions.
A White House analysis of the past 15 years of USAID funding is replete with questionable initiatives that rarely align with either American strategic imperatives or mainstream humanitarianism.
Ideological bias runs deep within USAID, where 96 percent of employee political contributions have gone to Democratic PACs and candidates. That imbalance can clearly create blind spots in vetting and an eagerness to support left-wing agendas, including some that contradict or undermine U.S. security.
Readers need not condemn all foreign aid to see that abuses abound. Some recognized programs—like specific anti-AIDS and anti-malaria campaigns—have saved hundreds of thousands of lives.
That does not justify or excuse away money used by terror organizations to murder and subvert. Abolishing USAID may be an extreme measure, but a radical overhaul is overdue.
Fundamental steps would include total transparency in awarding grants, real-time audits and forced disclosure of every sub-award, rigorous and continuously updated vetting for extremist ties, and harsh penalties when either staff or NGOs break the rules.
Until now, the system’s “audit protocols” have seemed toothless, and inspector general alerts have been ignored or smoothed over.
There is a difference between a well-intentioned foreign-aid program that runs afoul of local corruption and a carefully orchestrated channeling of funds to an outfit known to endorse violence. The latter implies criminality.
The problem is that government officials often place controversial actions in a “gray area” to avoid liability.
The scrutiny of foreign-aid misuse must be balanced with strategic realities. While eliminating corrupt and improper spending remains essential, America cannot simultaneously afford to cede global influence to Iran, Russia, and China—adversaries actively working to undermine U.S. interests worldwide.
Properly directed international assistance serves as a crucial component of a comprehensive “peace through strength” strategy that deters rivals, outcompetes China economically, stabilizes vulnerable regions, and creates barriers against transnational threats including disease outbreaks, drug trafficking, terrorism, and uncontrolled migration.
Evidence demonstrates that when American presence diminishes—whether in the Sahel region of Africa or across Central America—our geopolitical competitors move swiftly to fill the vacuum.
Beijing deploys infrastructure investments, Moscow offers security partnerships, and, most concerning, Iran’s proxies and other terrorist organizations establish new operational safe havens from which they can project threats directly against the United States and its allies.
Evidence of this strategic displacement is mounting. The funding of woke programs over national-security priorities during the Biden administration was especially troubling.
Sudan and Russia reportedly agreed to establish a Russian naval base near Port Sudan. China is pushing to replace America’s investments from Nepal to Colombia. As Senate Armed Services Chairman Roger Wicker noted, U.S. international assistance is “our way to combat China’s Belt and Road Initiative.”
Cost-effective investments in counterterrorism programs strengthen our partners’ capacity to fight al-Qaeda and ISIS so Americans don’t have to.
In Syria, critical civilian stabilization programs—working alongside the U.S. military—including security at camps housing close to 10,000 people, were briefly cut off, jeopardizing progress in defeating ISIS.
Across the Sahel, the new center of jihadist activity where Russian mercenaries exploit power vacuums, counterterror programs have been paused, including efforts to improve local law-enforcement capacity to respond to, apprehend, and prosecute terrorists.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Texas) articulated this balance well, noting that U.S. international assistance “has a legitimate purpose to counter the rising threat of China and Belt and Road and our other foreign adversaries. It also has the ability to counter terrorism.”
The Global Fragility Act, championed by McCaul and Senator Lindsey Graham (R.-S.C.), aims to coordinate efforts by the State Department, Department of Defense, and USAID to stabilize nations at risk of breeding terrorism.
These legitimate strategic objectives are undermined when aid falls into the wrong hands. The Middle East Forum’s research has identified approximately $164 million in USAID and State Department grants flowing to organizations with extremist ties, with at least $122 million directly benefiting groups aligned with designated foreign terrorist organizations.
The systemic nature of these failures is particularly concerning. As mentioned, World Vision continued its relationship with problematic partners even after the Islamic Relief Agency scandal, and the warnings about the terror links to Helping Hand for Relief and Development were ignored while funding continued.
The Trump 47 administration, in coordination with Elon Musk’s review at DOGE, has frozen or reassigned many staff positions at USAID, pending a thorough evaluation of who is responsible for these abuses.
Spreadsheets posted by the administration to show the extent of foreign-aid spending have been criticized as “wild” or “inaccurate.” Yet the broad brushstrokes are accurate: Billions have gone to questionable projects, and no single line item enumerates them.
That is partly because some managers awarded money to unnamed or shadowy organizations, hidden behind the aforementioned “miscellaneous foreign awardees” category.
Eliminating such chaos will take more than new guidelines on paper. A cultural shift must accompany it. If top-level administrators remain committed to certain ideological crusades at the expense of U.S. security, no new rule will suffice.
Some staff may need to be replaced or face criminal investigation. Several subcommittee members demanded that the State Department and USAID begin to itemize every last grant, sub-grant, and sub-sub-grant of the past decade.
If that demand is met, the public might be shocked by the individuals or organizations that have lined their pockets.
Several U.S. statutes may apply to these cases. The first is 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, which prohibits material support to designated terrorist organizations.
Another is 50 U.S.C. § 1705 under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which criminalizes violations of sanctions against terror groups.
Additionally, false statements to obtain federal funds (18 U.S.C. § 1001) and fraud in federal programs (18 U.S.C. § 666) might be relevant where organizations concealed extremist ties to secure grants.
The reform agenda must be comprehensive. Officials should create an organized “Do Not Fund” list merging data from the State Department, Treasury designations, intelligence agencies, and the Department of Justice.
If an organization or its top personnel have documented links to extremist networks, they should land on that list. The system must track sub-grantees, not just direct recipients.
Enforceable rules should require prime awardees to itemize every downstream partner and publicly file that information. Meanwhile, robust audits must confirm that an NGO cannot claim ignorance about its sub-sub-grantees.
Foreign aid is one of the noblest expressions of American leadership when it is spent wisely. In past decades, it helped defeat Soviet influence, curb infectious diseases, and lift whole regions from poverty.
But the hearing on February 26 laid bare a darker side of modern foreign aid. The subcommittee’s findings were a clarion call for a reset.
If U.S. assistance does not serve strategic interests and genuinely support threatened populations, it devolves into a slush fund that underwrites our foes or promotes fringe obsessions.
No one wants children to starve in war zones or real disasters to go unaddressed. Nevertheless, if long-standing agencies have indeed participated in funneling support to radical outfits—among them Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda’s affiliates, or Lashkar-e-Taiba—under a cloak of “humanitarian” assistance, then the time has arrived for serious housecleaning.
This is bigger than petty politics. The United States’s credibility and citizens’ safety hang in the balance.
A betrayal of American generosity has occurred, but it need not continue. With bold legislative steps, transparent accounting, vigorous vetting, and swift punishment for wrongdoers, the system can be reoriented to its original mission: harnessing American compassion and strategic sense, not abusing them.