Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), the Senate DOGE Caucus chair, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio Wednesday detailing the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) “anti-American agenda.”
“For multiple years, I have expressed grave concerns about willful sabotage of congressional oversight by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). Time and time again, the agency has been unwilling to provide accurate documents in response to my investigations into its frivolous expenditures including many instances of taxpayer-funded assistance to businesses in Ukraine,” the Senate Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Caucus and Small Business Committee chair wrote to Rubio.
“Despite numerous attempts by me and my staff to work in good faith with USAID staff to conduct oversight, the agency has engaged in a demonstrated pattern of obstructionism,” she continued.
Ernst charged that Trump’s “landslide victory” gave him a mandate for change, including upending federal agencies, including those with no accountability and with potentially “anti-American agendas[s].”
The Trump administration placed thousands of USAID employees on leave Tuesday as the administration shut down almost all foreign aid.
The Hawkeye State senator listed many issues facing USAID, which include “falsely claiming classified aid data,” misleading Congress on the indirect costs of aid, and failure to responsibly steward taxpayer funds.
When trying to audit taxpayer-funded assistance to businesses in Ukraine, USAID claimed that the information was classified and had to be viewed in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), a secure location to view classified information. After seeing the information, Ernst’s staffers discovered the information was not classified:
However, after accepting the requested accommodations and waiting weeks for available SCIF space at USAID’s headquarters, my staff discovered the documents were not classified. The documents my staff reviewed, on their face, failed to comply with standard classifications protocols. Only after demanding to speak to your USAID Office of Security, my staff uncovered that this data was, in fact, unclassified. In a desperate attempt to limit congressional oversight of public information, USAID demonstrated intentional abuse of a system designed to keep our nation’s secret information secure.
From my staff’s review of the data on USAID assistance to businesses in Ukraine thus far, it seems clear why USAID is trying to withhold information from Congress. Based on the in camera review, it appears that over 5,000 Ukrainian businesses received U.S. taxpayer funded assistance through the Competitive Economy Program (CEP), Investment for Business Resilience (IBR), Credit for Agricultural Producers (CAP), and Agriculture Growing Rural Opportunities (AGRO) programs with awards of up to $2 million each. [Emphasis added]
Ernst said that, through her oversight efforts, she discovered that USAID has signed onto agreements with grant recipients allowing the recipients to spend more than 25 percent of the total award on indirect costs of the grant, including “rent for a partner’s corporate headquarters, advocacy costs, and other miscellaneous expenses.”
Incredibly, the USAID only agreed to share data about grant agreements in 2023, and only after Ernst and then-House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) requested the data.
However, she revealed, “Even then, USAID refused to permit my staff to acquire the documents or take substantive notes on the NICRA rates. The lack of transparency was alarming because the NICRA rates far exceeded staff’s expected range of indirect costs allowed.”
Ernst has also highlighted USAID’s “gross negligence” in overseeing the recipients of these grant programs:
For example, Chemonics, in addition to questionable expenditures in the CEP, has a track record of allegedly overbilling U.S. taxpayers and possibly offering kickbacks to terrorist groups, bringing into question whether they could ever be a proper steward of taxpayer dollars.
Previously, Representative Mariannette Miller-Meeks pointed out serious, wide-ranging allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse in a Chemonics-led $9.5 billion USAID project meant to improve global health supply chains. That project failed to deliver promised health commodities on time, led to 41 arrests and 31 indictments related to illicit resale of USAID funded commodities on the black market, and fueled ongoing allegations that Chemonics falsely portrays its projects’ outcomes to secure future contracts with USAID. Additionally, USAID’s Inspector General found, in July 2023, that Chemonics over-billed the United States government for its contracting services to USAID by as much as $270 million through fiscal year 2019.
“The American people are rightfully raising questions regarding USAID’s vast and unmonitored funding of foreign interests, especially as the agency leverages contractors with such a checkered history. As I’ve said time and time again, Americans deserve answers about how their tax dollars are being spent abroad,” Ernst wrote.
She concluded in her letter to Rubio, “As I’ve said before, sunshine is the very best disinfectant— now is the time to get to the bottom of USAID’s shady practices once and for all. I strongly support your efforts to overhaul this rogue federal agency and stand by ready to assist.”
2025.2.4_Senator Ernst Letter to Secretary Rubio[1][2] by Breitbart News on Scribd
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.