[House Hearing, 118 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]


.                         ACCOUNTABLE ASSISTANCE:
                        REVIEWING CONTROLS TO PREVENT
                        MISMANAGEMENT OF FOREIGN AID

=======================================================================

                                HEARING

                               BEFORE THE

                   SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,
                    THE BORDER, AND FOREIGN AFFAIRS

                                 OF THE

                         COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT
                           AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                     U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                    ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                             MARCH 21, 2024

                               __________

                           Serial No. 118-97

                               __________

  Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Accountability
  
 [GRAPHIC NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT] 


                       Available on: govinfo.gov
                         oversight.house.gov or
                             docs.house.gov
                             
                               __________

                   U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE                    
55-221 PDF                  WASHINGTON : 2024                    
          
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               COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY

                    JAMES COMER, Kentucky, Chairman

Jim Jordan, Ohio                     Jamie Raskin, Maryland, Ranking 
Mike Turner, Ohio                        Minority Member
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Eleanor Holmes Norton, District of 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Columbia
Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin            Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Michael Cloud, Texas                 Gerald E. Connolly, Virginia
Gary Palmer, Alabama                 Raja Krishnamoorthi, Illinois
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Ro Khanna, California
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Kweisi Mfume, Maryland
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, New York
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Shontel Brown, Ohio
Byron Donalds, Florida               Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Robert Garcia, California
William Timmons, South Carolina      Maxwell Frost, Florida
Tim Burchett, Tennessee              Summer Lee, Pennsylvania
Marjorie Taylor Greene, Georgia      Greg Casar, Texas
Lisa McClain, Michigan               Jasmine Crockett, Texas
Lauren Boebert, Colorado             Dan Goldman, New York
Russell Fry, South Carolina          Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Anna Paulina Luna, Florida           Rashida Tlaib, Michigan
Nick Langworthy, New York            Ayanna Pressley, Massachesetts
Eric Burlison, Missouri
Mike Waltz, Florida

                                 ------                                
                       Mark Marin, Staff Director
       Jessica Donlon, Deputy Staff Director and General Counsel
             Kaity Wolfe, Senior Professional Staff Member
         Grayson Westmoreland, Senior Professional Staff Member
                      Lisa Piraneo, Senior Advisor
      Mallory Cogar, Deputy Director of Operations and Chief Clerk

                      Contact Number: 202-225-5074

                  Julie Tagen, Minority Staff Director
                      Contact Number: 202-225-5051
                                 ------                                

   Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs

                  Glenn Grothman, Wisconsin, Chairman
Paul Gosar, Arizona                  Robert Garcia, California, Ranking 
Virginia Foxx, North Carolina            Minority Member
Clay Higgins, Louisiana              Stephen F. Lynch, Massachusetts
Pete Sessions, Texas                 Dan Goldman, New York
Andy Biggs, Arizona                  Jared Moskowitz, Florida
Nancy Mace, South Carolina           Katie Porter, California
Jake LaTurner, Kansas                Cori Bush, Missouri
Pat Fallon, Texas                    Maxwell Frost, Florida
Scott Perry, Pennsylvania            Vacancy
Vacancy                              Vacancy
                         
                         
                         C  O  N  T  E  N  T  S

                              ----------                              

                                                                   Page

Hearing held on March 21, 2024...................................     1

                               Witnesses

                              ----------                              

Jim Richardson, Former Director, Office of Foreign Assistance, 
  U.S. Department of State
Oral Statement...................................................     5
Max Primorac, Senior Research Fellow, Margaret Thatcher Center 
  for Freedom, The Heritage Foundation
Oral Statement...................................................     7
Charles Kenny (Minority Witness), Senior Fellow, Center for 
  Global Development
Oral Statement...................................................     8

Written opening statements and statements for the witnesses are 
  available on the U.S. House of Representatives Document 
  Repository at: docs.house.gov.

                           Index of Documents

                              ----------                              

  * Statement for the Record, by Ted Yoho; submitted by Rep. 
  Grothman.

  * Article, Center for Immigration Studies, ``Biden Admin. Sends 
  Millions to Nonprofits for Illegal Migration''; submitted by 
  Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, Heritage, ``Foreign Aid Can't Stem Illegal 
  Immigration''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Article, NewsNation, ``NGOs Use US Tax Dollars to Relocate 
  Migrants''; submitted by Rep. Biggs.

  * Dataset, Ukraine Oversight Dashboard; submitted by Rep. 
  Garcia.

  * Report, ``When the Dominoes Fall--Guatemala'', submitted by 
  Rep. Garcia.

  * Article, The New York Times, ``Special Envoy Israeli Strikes 
  on Police Hindering Aid''; submitted by Rep. Porter.

  * Report, Guttmacher Institute, ``Unprecedented Expansion 
  Global Gag Rule''; submitted by Rep. Porter.

  * Article, Center for Immigration Studies, ``UN Budgets 
  Millions for U.S.-Bound Migrants in 2024''; submitted by Rep. 
  Sessions.

  * Article, ``UN Grantee Uses Tax Dollars for Illegal 
  Immigration''; submitted by Rep. Sessions.

  * Questions for the Record: to Mr. Kenny; submitted by Rep. 
  Garcia.

Documents are available at: docs.house.gov.

 
                        ACCOUNTABLE ASSISTANCE:
                     REVIEWING CONTROLS TO PREVENT
                      MISMANAGEMENT OF FOREIGN AID

                              ----------                              


                        Thursday, March 21, 2024

                     U.S. House of Representatives

               Committee on Oversight and Accountability

   Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs

                                           Washington, D.C.

    The Subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:50 p.m., in 
room 2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Glenn Grothman 
[Chairman of the Subcommittee] presiding.
    Present: Grothman, Sessions, Biggs, LaTurner, Fallon, 
Perry, Garcia, Lynch, and Porter.
    Mr. Grothman. The Subcommittee on National Security, the 
Border, and Foreign Affairs will come to order. Everyone, 
welcome.
    Without objection, the Chair may declare a recess at any 
time.
    I am going to recognize myself for the purpose of making an 
opening statement.
    Good afternoon. I want to welcome everyone to the hearing 
before the Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and 
Foreign Affairs. Today's hearing is an examination of concerns 
of waste, fraud, and abuse, and mismanagement of America's 
foreign aid, something that people back home love to hear 
about. I would like to take a moment to thank our witnesses for 
being here today. It is my hope we can have a productive dialog 
on the mechanisms needed to oversee how American taxpayer 
dollars are being spent on foreign aid. The World Bank, even 
the World Bank, estimates that 20 percent of foreign aid is 
lost to corruption each year and that 30 percent of foreign aid 
fails to reach its intended target.
    The Committee has a long history of conducting oversight on 
how few guardrails are in place when it comes to vetting 
contractors and grantees, leaving foreign assistance vulnerable 
to exploitation and undermining U.S. strategic goals. Today, we 
will examine whether, and if so, how the U.S. Government 
ensures that taxpayer-funded foreign aid achieves its 
objectives while safeguarding those dollars from being diverted 
to unintended or unlawful purposes. We will examine how USAID 
and Department of State monitor and evaluate their programs to 
make sure they are meeting their intended goals.
    Recently, the USAID Inspector General has cautioned that 
foreign aid going to Gaza and the West Bank is at an extremely 
high risk of waste, fraud, and abuse. In 2022 and 2023, the 
United States donated over $700 million to the United Nations 
Relief and Works Agency, an organization created and intended 
to provide humanitarian relief for the Palestinians. What did 
we find out? We now know the Hamas compound was located under 
an UNRWA building in Gaza City. Further evidence surfaced that 
some UNRWA employees participated in the devastating October 7 
Hamas attack against Israel on Israeli soil.
    Unfortunately, the Biden Administration has been sending 
taxpayer dollars to UNRWA since 2021, despite concerns that 
funds were being diverted to support terrorist activities. That 
is why the previous Administration had held funds from UNRWA. 
The Biden Administration unwisely reversed this decision, and 
taxpayer dollars were released to UNRWA without adequate 
guardrails to ensure the funds went for humanitarian relief 
rather than Hamas terrorists, and were only paused again after 
reports about UNRWA's support for terrorist activities surfaced 
a few weeks ago. That is why I led a request with Committee 
Chairman Comer and other Republican Members of this Committee 
to Secretary Blinken requesting documents and information about 
the Biden Administration's 2021 decision to restore funding to 
UNRWA. Understanding this decision will hopefully help us 
better understand if, and if so, how the Administration tracks 
foreign assistance in other places around the world.
    The Committee's oversight of foreign assistance is 
critically important not only to ensure taxpayer dollars are 
being well spent, but also to know whether the Federal 
Government is providing foreign assistance from falling into 
the hands of terrorists or other malicious actors. A recent 
poll by the Associated Press found that 4 in 10 U.S. adults 
said foreign policy should be a top priority for the U.S. 
Government. That is twice as many who mentioned the topic on 
the same survey conducted in 2022. This poll shows the 
increased anxiety the American public feels when it comes to 
how the U.S. conducts itself on the world stage. Unfortunately, 
this Administration made another reckless decision. During his 
recent State of the Union speech, President Biden announced 
plans for the U.S. military to build a temporary port to 
deliver more humanitarian assistance to Gaza. The President has 
decided to maroon approximately a thousand American uniformed 
men and women off the coast Gaza to build, using taxpayers' 
dollars again, a supposed humanitarian aid port without 
providing assurances that Hamas will not attack our troops or 
those receiving the aid, or that Hamas will not divert that aid 
for its own evil purposes.
    Foreign aid to Gaza is not the only area of foreign 
assistance that requires scrutiny here today. The U.S. heavily 
relies on direct budget assistance to foreign governments. It 
is vital that Congress and the Administration establish robust 
oversight mechanisms to prevent corruption and diversion of 
these funds. It always kind of amazes me these countries always 
say they need funds, but they seem to disappear. Any assistance 
to Ukraine must also be conditioned on the principle that they 
will allow full transparency, commit to tracking weapons and 
equipment, and open their books to the U.S. Government. 
Additionally, most of the money going to the Ukraine flows to 
the World Bank or other public international organizations. We 
owe it to the American people to demand greater accountability 
and transparency for multilateral organizations to ensure their 
operations align with our national interests and values.
    Last, we cannot ignore the allegations of political abuse 
surrounding the Biden Administration's use of foreign aid. The 
politicization of aid distribution, including the imposition of 
conditions based on ideological agendas, including DEI goals 
and left-wing climate policies, threatens to undermine the 
credibility and effectiveness of our foreign assistance. 
Oversight of foreign assistance is not merely a matter of 
fiscal responsibility, but a reflection of strategic goals. 
Today's hearing represents an opportunity to identify 
shortcomings, proposed reforms, and ensure that USAID serves as 
a force of good in the world. I look forward to the insights 
and recommendations that will emerge from today's discussion 
and our esteemed witness panel.
    I would now like to recognize the Ranking Member for the 
purpose of making an opening statement.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We obviously know that 
oversight of our Federal budget is very important, and it is 
certainly important that part of that oversight is foreign aid. 
Foreign aid, we know, is about 1 percent of the Federal budget, 
comparable to defense spending, which we know is about 12 
percent of the budget. That 1 percent makes an incredible 
impact across the world, certainly not just, obviously, in some 
of the conflict zones where foreign aid oftentimes is really 
critical, but also in building our relationships with our 
allies, but also strengthening our position across the globe.
    We know that as we speak, foreign aid is also critical in 
some of our conflict zones, and unfortunately, my friends in 
the majority right now are currently blocking about $60 billion 
of support to Ukraine in our fight against Russia. This is aid 
that is absolutely crucial to help the Ukrainian people defend 
themselves. Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom and 
democracy against Vladimir Putin, a world criminal who has 
attacked America's democracy as well. And here are some facts. 
Our government has more than 400 people working to oversee 
foreign aid. The inspectors general from the Defense 
Department, State Department, the U.S. Agency for International 
Development all work with 20 other Federal agencies and the 
Ukrainian Government. There is deep oversight with how we spend 
our support and our tax dollars from here at home.
    I also want to make sure that I ask for unanimous consent 
to enter into the record this list of more than 145 completed 
ongoing and planned oversight reports and investigations from 
the Special Inspector General for Operation Atlantic Resolve.
    Mr. Grothman. Without objection.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
    The Ukrainians themselves are fighting for their existence. 
They want and need our aid to make the biggest possible impact 
as well. Now, Transparency International's 2023 report on 
international corruption reported that Ukraine has made 
significant progress, taken on corruption even during the 
challenges of war. Now, wartime Ukraine climbed 12 places in 
the 2023 edition of this annual survey. Now, the report found 
that ``Ukraine's growth by 3 points is one of the best results 
over the past year in the entire world.'' Now, we know there 
are challenges, and certainly a lot of folks like to point out 
where there are areas that we can improve, and conducting 
oversight in a war zone is hard when we cannot access, of 
course, the front line, but this foreign aid is critical, 
especially at this moment.
    Now, at the outset of the conflict, U.S. personnel in 
Ukraine had to be evacuated. We all know this. Over the course 
of the next 6 months, U.S. agencies worked diligently to 
establish logistic hubs in partner nations to oversee the 
transfer of aid and equipment. It is important to note that up 
until this conflict, end use monitoring of defense articles had 
only been executed in a peacetime environment, which meant the 
U.S. Government could conduct site visits and have greater 
access. Now, our agencies conducting oversight of aid to 
Ukraine had to develop entirely new procedures for conducting 
this work in a hostile environment.
    Now, my friends in the Majority like to, of course, also 
talk about issues around the border, and we, of course, have 
not had a single hearing on push factors that drive people to 
migrate. But we know that foreign aid and additional foreign 
aid would also have a huge impact on what is happening along 
the border, and certainly to help the people of Mexico, Central 
America, and South America. We should have a hearing that 
examines the root causes of our global problems and work to 
remediate those. Now, our humanitarian aid fights displacement 
by addressing these root causes. Poverty and climate change, we 
know, are also huge factors, and when we look at migration that 
is happening, for example, in Guatemala or Honduras, there are 
huge challenges that could also be addressed with support from 
the United States and the world as it relates to humanitarian 
aid.
    The humanitarian crisis in Venezuela has been an enormous 
driver of folks coming to the border. We used to have thousands 
of folks from Venezuela come to the border, and now we have 
had, in some years, hundreds of thousands of folks from 
Venezuela coming to the border. We know that in countries where 
criminal gangs may control the police or the government, our 
U.S. assistance is vital to also fight corruption and 
insecurity.
    In Guatemala, for instance, we funded a U.N. commission of 
independent prosecutors that helped prosecute, take on military 
death squads, take on rogue police officers, drug cartels, and 
even two presidents. That commission helped cut homicides, by 
the way, by 32 percent, dismantle 60 criminal networks, and 
catalyze the indictment of 680 bad actors across the country. 
President Biden has fought to strengthen that commission even 
when he was vice president. So, there is a lot of work that we 
can do around human aid.
    I want to ask also for unanimous consent to introduce this 
report from the Washington office of Latin America called, 
``When the Dominos Fall, Cooption of the Justice System in 
Guatemala,'' into the record.
    Mr. Grothman. Without objection.
    Mr. Garcia. Thank you.
    So, just like in Ukraine, there are attacks by some on 
foreign aid that has harmed innocent people, weakened American 
values, and harmed our national interests. Foreign aid is 
critical in our success as a country and in our national 
security interests as well. And with that, I yield back, Mr. 
Chairman.
    Mr. Grothman. I am pleased to introduce our witnesses 
today. First of all, going across here, Jim Richardson, 
Executive Director to former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and 
Chairman of the Pompeo Foundation. Previously he was the 
Director of the Office of Foreign Assistance at the Department 
of State and has decades in private and government service. 
Next, Max Primorac, a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage 
Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom. Previously, 
he was the acting Chief Operating Officer at USAID during the 
Trump Administration. And finally, Charles Kenny, Senior Fellow 
at the Center for Global Development, previously worked for the 
World Bank, focusing on anticorruption relating to 
infrastructure and natural resources. Again, I want to thank 
all three of you for being here today.
    Pursuant to Committee Rule 9(g), the witnesses will please 
stand and raise their right hand.
    Do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony that you 
are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing 
but the truth, so help you God?
    [A chorus of ayes.]
    Mr. Grothman. Good. We keep the record going. Let the 
record show that the witnesses answered in the affirmative. 
Thank you. You may take a seat. We appreciate you being here 
and look forward to your testimony.
    Let me remind the witnesses that we have read your written 
statement, and it will appear in full in the hearing record. 
So, if you can, try to limit your opening statement to about 5 
minutes. As a reminder, please push the button on the 
microphone in front of you so that is on, and the Members can 
hear you. When you begin to speak, the light in front of you 
will turn green. After 4 minutes, the light will turn yellow. 
When the red light comes on, your 5 minutes are up, and wrap up 
as quickly as you can.
    I will now recognize Mr. Richardson for your opening 
statement.

                      STATEMENT OF JIM RICHARDSON

             FORMER DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF FOREIGN ASSISTANCE

                        U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

    Mr. Richardson. Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking 
Member, Members of the Committee. I appreciate the opportunity 
to discuss how we can improve U.S. foreign assistance. As the 
Chairman said, my name is Jim Richardson, and it is a great 
honor to be back here in the House, having spent much of my 
career in Rayburn before heading to the executive branch during 
the Trump Administration.
    My first stop was to reorganize the U.S. Agency for 
International Development, undertaking one of the largest 
reorganizations of the agency in history. We moved to a more 
data-informed and goal-oriented approach and worked to realign 
our structures, people, and systems to match. After USAID, I 
was the Director of the Office of Foreign Assistance at the 
State Department. There, I coordinated assistance across USAID 
and state on behalf of the Secretary. Needless to say, I have 
encountered lots of obstacles and a lot of potential in our 
foreign aid. As we discuss how to improve it, I want to impress 
three things: one, strategic alignment; two, a renewed focus on 
effectiveness; and No. 3, a careful selection of our partners 
and instruments to maximize the impact of our assistance and 
ensure that it does not fall into the wrong hands.
    First and foremost, we must see our foreign aid as a tool 
of our national security efforts and ensure complete alignment. 
We are seeing foreign aid be used to advance narrow political 
ideologies, as the Chairman mentioned. This is both wasteful 
and dangerous. Our Nation is facing real challenges, from China 
to drug cartels to terrorism to mass migration on our Southern 
border. With limited resources, it is imperative that we 
carefully choose where and how to employ our foreign assistance 
to achieve our national security goals.
    Second, we have to demand maximum impact from our foreign 
assistance programs. Progress must be measured against 
specific, meaningful benchmarks that drive toward concrete 
outcomes. Whether facilitating self-reliance, promoting 
bilateral trade, or advancing strategic goals, our assistance 
must produce measurable results that actually matter to the 
American people. We must constantly reevaluate existing 
programs, stop ineffective ones, and embrace innovative ideas 
that suit the unique circumstances of each situation. This 
includes shifting toward more conditional assistance, 
partnerships, loans and investments, and away from more 
traditional approaches that have often proven ineffective. Take 
Ukraine, for instance, a topic of conversation already here 
today. Here, economic development is robust, and so instead of 
providing economic assistance grants, we should transition to 
more of a loan-based assistance. Loans can foster economic 
self-reliance and encourage responsible fiscal management.
    Finally, I want to touch on how we engage with those who 
implement our assistance. As you know, the United States 
utilizes a wide variety of nonprofits, for-profits, and 
international organizations to implement its programs. First, 
we need to reduce our reliance on public international 
organizations--PIOs--specifically, the U.N. family. Working 
directly through the PIOs is inherently less transparent and 
less accountable. Instead, we should select partners who can 
best accomplish the task with maximum control and 
accountability. This is often a local partner, which has an 
added benefit of building the capacity of the host country. 
Once identified, rigorous vetting processes are essential to 
ensure the suitability and integrity of our partners. We must 
ensure that all partners, including PIOs, are subject to the 
same vetting standards.
    Given what happened in Gaza, as the Chairman mentioned, it 
is essential that we vet our PIOs. If we have to use them, they 
have to be vetted, and that includes the NGOs that work with 
them that the PIOs actually fund. Furthermore, we must vet 
partners beyond just ties to terrorism, which is our current 
standard. While terrorism remains a paramount concern, we want 
to make sure that American taxpayers do not remain at the hands 
of a wide range of bad actors, including drug traffickers and 
wildlife poachers.
    Foreign assistance is an incredibly complex topic, so I 
appreciate your willingness to hold this hearing, and I look 
forward to your questions.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Thank you very much. Now, I would like to 
recognize Mr. Primorac for your opening statement.

                       STATEMENT OF MAX PRIMORAC

                         SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW

                  MARGARET THATCHER CENTER FOR FREEDOM

                        THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION

    Mr. Primorac. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, 
and distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, to speak about 
America's foreign aid apparatus. Again, my name is Max 
Primorac. I work at the Heritage Foundation. The views I 
express here, testimony, are my own and should not be construed 
as representing any official position of the Heritage 
Foundation.
    Mr. Chairman, I have spent over 30 years in the foreign aid 
sphere as an NGO practitioner in the Balkans, as USAID 
contractor in Afghanistan, think tank expert, and also as a 
senior official at the U.S. Agency for International 
Development as well as U.S. Department of State. I served as an 
envoy of the Vice President to carry out his counter genocide 
programs in Iraq. It is, however, with great sadness that I 
must describe our foreign aid apparatus as broken and even 
corrupt.
    Foreign aid is a tool of foreign policy. As Jim has 
mentioned, its purpose is to promote the national interest of 
the United States. In the past, foreign aid helped curb the 
spread of communism. After the fall of communism, it helped 
integrate Central and Eastern Europe into NATO and become 
strong allies. Millions of lives have been saved by our global 
disaster responses, but the foreign aid budget has become too 
big. Our Federal agencies cannot fulfill their management and 
oversight functions. The result is substantial waste, fraud, 
and abuse. A well-financed and politicized aid industrial 
complex lobbies Congress for higher foreign aid budgets and 
against reforms to hold them accountable. Worse, foreign aid is 
misused to export radical ideas that offend many Americans, 
erode our talent base in our aid work force, and trample on the 
religious beliefs in countries where we provide aid. This 
benefits communist China.
    So, what reforms are needed to restore the critical global 
role that U.S. foreign aid once played in advancing America's 
national interest? First, Congress must make deep cuts in the 
international affairs budget to a level our Federal agencies 
can reasonably manage. When I launched the new Bureau for 
Humanitarian Assistance and its $8 billion portfolio, I was 
impressed by the response capabilities of our work force but 
deeply troubled at the inability to track where this aid was 
going. Mr. Chairman, as you have mentioned, American taxpayers 
now know that millions of dollars of USAID to Gaza was diverted 
to Hamas to finance a terror network that led to the October 7 
massacres of over 1,000 Israeli citizens. Through aid 
diversion, we are also financing terrorists in Yemen, Syria, 
and Afghanistan. Years of humanitarian aid have destroyed the 
ability of countries to feed themselves. While on special 
assignment to Haiti, I asked local entrepreneurs why their 
farmers could not feed their country. Their dry response was 
that it is hard to compete against free food.
    Second, defunding the climate agenda will reduce global 
poverty and hunger. Foreign aid policy discourages countries, 
especially poor countries, from developing their fossil fuel 
industries to secure cheap energy, generate revenues to finance 
their own social services, and reduce the cost of food. 
Instead, we are forcing these countries to rely on communist 
China to meet their wind and solar equipment needs. Third, we 
need more transparency and accountability. Congress must 
require that all aid awards and sub-awards be made public. A 
recent government audit found that USAID did not know the 
overhead charges of almost $142 billion in awards. Procurement 
fraud by international organizations has become endemic. 
Instead, we should increase funding to church-based local NGOs 
rather than expensive U.N. agencies and for-profit contractors.
    Fourth, we must de-radicalize our aid programs. We must 
stop pushing DEI, abortion, and other gender policies overseas, 
norms that contradict those in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. 
Last, we must refocus our foreign aid approach toward 
partnership with America's private sector to increase trade and 
investment with the global south. To do this, we must amend the 
BUILD Act to strengthen the U.S. International Development 
Corporation as a counter-China tool and expand the role of the 
Millennium Challenge Corporation, which rewards economic 
reformers.
    To conclude, the objective of foreign aid must be to end 
the need for it. Thank you, and I look forward to your 
questions.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Now, Mr. Kenny, your opening 
statement.

                       STATEMENT OF CHARLES KENNY

                             SENIOR FELLOW

                     CENTER FOR GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT

    Mr. Kenny. Chairman Grothman, Ranking Member Garcia, 
Members of the Subcommittee, thanks very much for inviting me 
today. I am a Senior Fellow at the Center for Global 
Development, but I am speaking very much on my own behalf 
today. I have spent a number of years researching corruption in 
foreign aid and aid effectiveness more generally, and in 
previous work for the World Bank, I managed aid programs, 
including some in fragile states.
    I want to make two points. First, corruption and financial 
mismanagement is a real problem globally, with negative 
implications for both development and foreign assistance, but 
it does not stop that assistance having a major impact. Second, 
reducing upstream bureaucracy and focusing on impact through 
transparency and tracking results is the best way to deliver 
more effective aid.
    Every year, the global total of bribe payments may be as 
high as 2 percent of GDP. Beyond corruption, considerable 
government finance is wasted on projects that do not deliver 
what they promised due to factors ranging from incompetence to 
fraud. And U.S. Government spending, including U.S. foreign 
assistance, is not immune from those problems. That said, U.S. 
civilian aid is some of the most closely monitored of all 
government spending, and that monitoring suggests that while 
malfeasance does occur, it is comparatively rare on average. 
Let me provide some examples.
    Between 2012 and 2020, SIGAR, the Special Inspector General 
for Afghan Reconstruction, issued 176 audit reports covering 
$8.5 billion in costs for Afghanistan reconstruction, and only 
about 0.4 percent of the audited costs were eventually 
disallowed. Again, the Ukraine Special Inspector General report 
of February this year noted that USAID carried out spot checks 
that trace expenditures reported by the Ukrainian Government to 
verify that direct budget support was received by intended 
beneficiaries. Of 475 spot checks, all were carried out without 
any major issues identified.
    Of course, special inspectors general and integrity 
departments do not and never will be able to audit every penny 
to the last recipient. Whatever the level of control, we will 
never be able to ensure zero waste or fraud, but what we can 
say is that leakage rates are usually low, and, again, we can 
say it with more confidence about civilian foreign assistance 
flows than we can about a lot of other government finance.
    But take Afghanistan again. When assistance failed, and 
surely a lot of assistance failed in Afghanistan, not least, 
for example, when it came to helping the Afghan National Army 
become an effective fighting force, it was because of problems 
that do not appear in financial audit reports. Conversely, a 
lot of aid with somewhat inadequate paperwork managed to have a 
very meaningful and positive impact. For example, starting in 
2002, USAID supported the Afghan Ministry of Health, delivering 
a basic package of healthcare services to 90 percent of the 
country at a cost of about $4.50 per person per year. USAID 
focused on results and used independent evaluations to ensure 
that the vaccinations happened and that services were provided.
    The results speak for themselves. The proportion of kids 
who died before their 5th birthday in Afghanistan fell from 
about 13 percent in 2001 to about 6 percent in 2020. That 
declining mortality rate is saving more kids each year in 
Afghanistan than the total number born in Nebraska, Nevada, and 
Kansas combined, and U.S. assistance can take a big part of the 
credit. It is these results that matter, that aid is saving 
lives and promoting economic growth. Getting these results is 
why we provide the assistance in the first place, and an excess 
focus on monitoring receipts and processes can get in the way 
of achieving that.
    Back in 2010, Andrew Natsios, USAID Administrator under 
President George W. Bush, complained of the counter bureaucracy 
of excessive process and control mechanisms fighting against 
aid effectiveness. Natsios suggested a third or more of USAID 
staff were hired purely to deal with compliance issues, and he 
asked, are we creating a system where every taxpayer dollar is 
accounted for, that it is incapable of carrying out its 
national security tasks? I think that question is even more 
urgent today.
    Congress has put in place some of the underpinnings for a 
results-based accountability agenda, including the Foreign Aid 
Transparency and Accountability Act, but I would urge you to go 
further. Rather than an accountability model excessively based 
on processes and receipts, we should rebalance. We should be 
doing more to survey beneficiaries. We should do more to 
physically audit infrastructure financed under all aid 
projects. Where possible, rather than paying for potential 
outcomes, we should be basing payments on achieved results. 
Combined with transparency and project delivery targets that 
allow beneficiaries themselves to act as monitors, these 
approaches can ensure impact. Thank you very much.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. I will now recognize myself for 5 
minutes. First of all, we will start with Mr. Primorac.
    In the report you authored released in May 2022, called, 
``Congress Must Stop Biden's Misuse of U.S. Foreign Aid to 
Impose His Radical Social Agenda,'' and by the way, part of the 
fault has to come from Congress, who wanted him to do that, 
U.S. foreign aid has become an appendage of one political party 
seeking to advance its radical global agenda of ideological 
indoctrination. That is what you said. Can you elaborate what 
you meant by that?
    Mr. Primorac. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for raising that 
issue. I think that Chairman Mike McCaul of the House Foreign 
Affairs Committee put it well when he learned, for example, 
that the State Department was spending a massive amount of 
money, not only in the past, but in the future, in 
strengthening its DEI structures within state. The same thing 
is over at USAID, and he commented how DEI, as enforced, now 
foreign aid and civil service officers must pledge allegiance 
to the DEI agenda or else risk not being promoted.
    One of my colleagues, formerly of USAID, looked at FEC, 
Federal Election Commission, data regarding political 
contributions, and at the State Department and at the USAID, 
you are talking about 97, 94 percent to one party. When you are 
looking at the top contractors for USAID and you are talking 
about companies that are earning billions of dollars, again, 
you look at their FEC contributions, it is almost 100 percent, 
and on and on and on. What this has done has really harmed our 
work force in which anybody who does not agree with this 
Marxist-inspired DEI and other radical ideology is not 
welcomed. So, you basically have a one-party aid industrial 
complex, both in the bureaucracy but also in the aid community.
    I will just read to you really quickly, for instance, 
Interaction is a coalition of a humanitarian aid organizations. 
Their DEI statement is that anti-Blackness is rooted in White 
supremacy and refers to a White gaze--G-A-Z-E--that places 
people of color against a model of Whiteness. You have another 
major coalition of USAID contractors talking about self-
identity as Black, indigenous, and people of color, BIPOC 
women, gender queer, non-binary, LGBTQIA+, people with 
disabilities, and those from formerly or currently colonized 
countries. Basically, what this industry has told America, that 
if you are conservative, if you are Republican, if you are 
independent, you are a moderate Democrat, which is the vast 
majority of America, there is no place for you to work in this 
industry. Thank you.
    Mr. Grothman. Very illuminating. I personally believe the 
reason we could not get along with the people in Afghanistan is 
these State Department types were what most people around world 
would be considered left-wing extremists. Next question. Well, 
first of all, I guess you gave me some. Can you give me any 
other examples of how the administration weaponizes foreign aid 
programs?
    Mr. Primorac. Well, I can give you an example of one 
project that is stunning. It is a $45 million 5-year program to 
support global NGOs around the world. And I remember reading 
about this project and looking at requests for applications, 
looking at a footnote and mentioning that the inspiration for 
the theory working behind it was an Italian Marxist. And I 
looked at some of her work, and one of her panels that she led 
was titled, ``Marxism in Social Movements: Is Marx Back in 
Social Theory?'' We are literally financing a global network of 
anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Western NGOs.
    Mr. Grothman. It does not surprise me, but it is horrible. 
Mr. Richardson, a lot of Members of this body are concerned 
about the amount of foreign assistance we are giving around the 
world when we have our own crisis at the Southern border. Can 
you discuss how the U.S. should be monitoring the works of 
public international organizations involved at our Southern 
border? How do we ensure these PIOs are not working against 
U.S. interests, and can you give me examples where you think 
they are?
    Mr. Richardson. Yes, absolutely. Thank you for that. Yes, I 
think the bottom line is that you have a lot of PIOs, and a lot 
of the U.N. family organizations are providing billions of 
dollars in funding to NGOs to help migrants make the journey 
north. And obviously, there is a lot of cash assistance, food 
support, but they are encouraging, in a way, the migration from 
the South. Obviously, that goes against, I think, what most 
Americans are looking for, which is a decrease. In fact, it is 
against what even the Biden Administration is saying, that they 
do not want these migrants to come, and yet we are continuing 
to fund the PIOs that, ultimately, are doing this.
    The challenge, as I mentioned in my statement, the 
challenge with working with PIOs and the U.N. family, in 
particular, is once you give the money, you almost lose all 
visibility and transparency and accountability. It goes into a 
big pot, and then the U.N. folks get to decide how and where to 
use it. Furthermore, as I mentioned in my statement, we do not 
currently vet PIOs or the people that they work with, so the 
money just goes to the U.N. organizations. We have no idea who 
these people are, who are ultimately getting these funds. We 
cannot track it. We do not know if these organizations are 
attached to cartels or human smugglers. It would be pretty 
smart if they were because, obviously, knowing the flow of 
resources in humans would be pretty interesting to human 
traffickers. But it is that type of challenge that we cannot 
even solve because we do not have any visibility into what is 
happening.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. We are paying for our own noose. 
Mr. Lynch.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Kenny, I would like 
to talk about Ukraine a little bit. So, look, I have been on 
this Committee for over 20 years. The Oversight Committee's job 
is to oversee how that foreign aid gets spent. So just myself, 
I have led between 40 and 50 CODELs to Iraq--probably did 20 
trips to Iraq--Afghanistan, Somalia, Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, for 
the purpose of making sure that our money is going to the right 
places, and I have to say, you know, Iraq was a mess, you know. 
We had a horror show there. We were handing out, you know, 
duffel bags full of cash that went God knows where. There was 
$9 billion that the Bush Administration misspent in the 
original surge to go in there.
    But since then, you know, from my own observation, since 
then, things have gotten much better. You know, the situation 
in Afghanistan, much more closely watched, much more 
documented, and going forward to Ukraine. I just want to point 
out that the $60 billion in the President's budget for Ukraine, 
90 percent of that will be spent in the United States. So, this 
is munitions for Ukraine and to replace munitions that the 
United States has already given to Ukraine for their own 
defense. Compared to the other foreign aid packages that we 
have seen out there, this one has the most visibility because 
it is going to be spent, you know, by buying munitions from 
General Dynamics, Raytheon. American companies staffed by 
American workers, that is where Ukraine is going to spend 90 
percent of its money.
    The other piece of this is what is going on in Ukraine and 
with our oversight there. You know, we have got people on the 
ground. I was just there recently, met with President Zelensky 
and his defense minister, talked about the need that we cannot 
have a bad story about U.S. aid to Ukraine. You need to make 
sure that every single dollar is tracked in terms of how it is 
spent, and he obviously brought up the point that he is 
spending it in the United States, you know, 90 percent of it. 
And we have a good set of oversight protocols here in the 
United States to make sure that that money is spent properly.
    You know, for 80 years, we have been preparing this 
country. Our national security strategy has been to prepare our 
country to respond to a ground war in Europe. All those 
trillions of dollars over the last 80 years, we have been 
trying to prepare to respond to a ground war in Europe. Now we 
have one, and my Republican colleagues refuse to bring a bill 
up that would actually go toward defending Europe and Ukraine. 
You know, the EU has already contributed more than the United 
States has toward Ukraine. The EU has contributed, and largely 
Germany and the U.K., our British allies, have contributed $93 
billion directly to Ukraine. Now, people will say, well, 
naturally, they are European countries, and they are fearful 
for their own security. That is right, but they have been all 
in on this, and what Ukraine is asking for is the ability to 
defend itself.
    So, can you talk a little bit in this last minute about 
what it means to U.S. national security and U.S. prestige in 
the world, U.S. leadership in the world, this refusal of the 
United States to step up and defend a democracy that is 
fighting for its life against a brutal criminal gangster 
dictator in Vladimir Putin? What does that mean?
    Mr. Kenny. I am an economist, not a national security 
expert, but I will say that I think the U.S. leadership in 
Ukraine really matters worldwide. It is of intense interest, as 
you say, to some of the United States' closest allies. I would 
also say that Ukraine is spending this money really effectively 
and well. It has one of the world's best systems for spending 
money. ProZorro has been universally admired. So, the 
combination of it being a really important place to spend money 
and a really effective place to spend money.
    Mr. Lynch. Let me ask you, you know, according to the 
witness from the Heritage Foundation, the Trump Administration 
justified cuts because they wanted to ``avoid injecting 
divisive sociopolitical issues into its humanitarian, global 
health, and development responses.'' Mr. Kenny, what is 
divisive about funding global health programs that promote the 
safety and well-being of women and girls? Because that is a lot 
of what I have seen overseas--you know, down in Sudan, we did 
an HIV clinic to stop the spread of HIV and AIDS on the 
continent. What is divisive about that?
    Mr. Kenny. I think all the panelists would agree that 
PEPFAR has been a massive success and I think is a model for 
the world and shows incredible U.S. leadership. I would also 
say that PEPFAR gets a bit less effective when a whole load of 
the usual providers cannot be used, because, as it happens, 
they also advise on sexual and reproductive health, and they 
are taken out of the picture. It actually makes PEPFAR's work 
more difficult. Frankly, it also leads to more abortions 
worldwide. We see when the global gag effect comes in, that 
because the United States is such an important funder in this 
area, countries get less in the way of sexual and reproductive 
health services, including contraceptives, and the result is 
that the abortion rate goes up.
    So, I would love to see this not be quite the political 
football it is and turn into something where, you know, the 
United States has shown such fantastic leadership on this. It 
is saving hundreds of thousands of lives in a really cheap and 
effective way. Anything that stands in the way of that seems to 
me a real shame.
    Mr. Lynch. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I yield back, and I 
thank you for your courtesy.
    Mr. Lynch. Thanks. Mr. Sessions?
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, and my 
dear friend who has just spoken did politicize this activity. 
So, I would ask each of you, what about the Inspector General 
who tried to find out about the debacle that happened in 
Afghanistan and was completely blocked from receiving 
information about what United States spent their money doing, 
not just in the war, but in aid also? Do any of you have 
insight into that?
    Mr. Primorac. I would be willing to speak about the aid 
piece since the debacle. There was a recent report from the 
Inspector General that mentioned that $3 billion worth of cash 
disbursements in Afghanistan, that they cannot account for 
really where it went. Keep in mind, in order to have----
    Mr. Sessions. So, that kind of matches what the gentleman 
was talking about, all this cash that disappeared under George 
Bush, so it is a rough business. Is that right?
    Mr. Primorac. The problem with Afghanistan is we do not 
have anybody on the ground, so there is absolutely no one on 
the ground to see where the money is going or to be able to 
verify with partners, or even who the partners are.
    Mr. Sessions. And there was never going to be anybody 
there----
    Mr. Primorac. Yes.
    Mr. Sessions [continuing]. And they gave the $3 billion 
anyway.
    Mr. Primorac. They gave the $3 billion. Every year, we have 
spent billions of dollars in Afghanistan, and the Special 
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction has repeatedly 
explained to Members of Congress that he cannot guarantee that 
we are not financing the Taliban.
    Mr. Sessions. Yes. Gentlemen, by the way, thank you for 
being here, each of you. I think what our young Chairman is 
doing is a very valuable hearing, and I could not wait to get 
here. I am sorry. We were at votes. Conversation from you, are 
any of you aware of Center for Immigration Studies? Mr. 
Richardson, talk to me about them.
    Mr. Richardson. They are a nonprofit think tank that 
focuses on lower migration numbers. They state that they are 
pro-immigrant.
    Mr. Sessions. Center for Immigration Studies produced a 
paper January 24. Mr. Chairman, I would like unanimous consent 
to enter this into the record.
    Mr. Grothman. Without objection.
    Mr. Sessions. Gentlemen, immigration, let us see, the 
Federalist.com. Anybody aware of them? Mr. Richardson?
    Mr. Richardson. I am not sure I am following that one, sir.
    Mr. Sessions. OK. I do. I will put myself in that category. 
I do. Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask unanimous consent, 
``United Nations Grantee Uses U.S. Tax Dollars to Fund Illegal 
Immigration.'' I would like to enter that into the record also.
    Mr. Grothman. Without objection.
    Mr. Sessions. Mr. Chairman, I know that there are lots of 
things always that we could disagree with, but one thing that, 
living in Texas, I cannot agree with is the way we have a 
political philosophy by the Democratic Party that we are going 
to open up completely our borders without regard for national 
security, without regard for the law, without regard for common 
sense, and not only place Americans in a difficult position, 
but using our money to get that done. Who is the largest 
organization that we think, NGO, that we pay money to, to 
encourage this sort of activity, at least in our Southern 
border. Do any of you have any heads up on that? Mr. 
Richardson?
    Mr. Richardson. Well, the International Organization for 
Migration is one of the largest, again, a U.N. family 
organization. They are spending, I think it is $1.6 billion. 
They just stated they are looking to raise money in order to 
fund a myriad of nonprofits. As I said in my testimony, we have 
no idea who these people really are. We cannot dive deep into 
making sure that these are the right types of people we should 
be providing. But beyond that, they are encouraging migration 
by making it----
    Mr. Sessions. Illegal immigration or migration.
    Mr. Richardson. Illegal immigration. They are encouraging 
illegal immigration into the United States by funding and 
making it easier for people to make their way north, and it is 
so apparent to me that I do not think it is a question of 
whether that is true or not.
    Mr. Sessions. Yes. Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for 
having this hearing today, and I want to thank our witnesses 
for being here. I just think that this is all courtesy of the 
Democratic Party, and we should understand that elections have 
consequences. Mr. Chairman, I yield back my time.
    Mr. Grothman. Ms. Porter?
    Ms. Porter. On October 7, 2023, Israel endured a 
devastating terrorist attack by Hamas. I support Israel's right 
to defend itself against terrorism, and I would say the same 
for any other country. That is because Israel should be treated 
like any other country. That is what Israel tells Congress, and 
I fully support that. As we consider aid to our allies, 
Congress should hear every country out. Israel should be 
treated like any other country, and that is why I signed the 
discharge petition for President Biden's aid package so that we 
can have that debate about appropriate aid on the House Floor, 
and when we do give foreign aid out, we verify that our allies 
are following the rules. The Leahy laws are supposed to verify 
that every country is meeting the same human rights standards. 
Under these laws, again, Israel should be treated like any 
other country, but is it? Is the vetting process really the 
same for all countries? Let us pull back the curtain.
    Mr. Richardson, does the United States vet each unit of a 
country's military individually before they receive security 
assistance?
    Mr. Richardson. Our vetting process is focused on non-U.S.-
based NGOs, and so does not include PIOs and generally does not 
include foreign militaries, the way that we do partner vetting 
in sort of a foreign assistance way.
    Ms. Porter. But do you vet at the individual? Does the 
Leahy law generally require individual unit-level vetting?
    Mr. Richardson. I am not aware of the military vetting on 
an individual unit basis, no.
    Ms. Porter. You were in charge of foreign assistance at the 
Department of State, and the budget for security assistance was 
about 30 percent of your total budget.
    Mr. Richardson. Yes, ma'am.
    Ms. Porter. So, let me help you out on how it is supposed 
to work.
    [Chart]
    We are supposed to do unit-level vetting to make sure that 
each military unit that gets assistance is not violating the 
law, and that is the way it works, except--this whiteboard is 
big--except for 15 countries. Fifteen countries. Fifteen 
countries that include a whole number of other countries, and I 
am happy to read them off, but there is a long list of them, 15 
countries. So, I am curious if other countries are getting 
special treatment. Let us say there is potential evidence that 
a unit of a country's armed forces has committed a human rights 
violation, and there are exceptions for these different 
processes. So, the special processes call into question if a 
single objection is enough to stop aid. Is that true? If there 
is a single objection that there is a human rights violation, 
does that stop aid?
    Mr. Richardson. When there is an accusation of abuse or 
misuse of U.S. resources in the security space or in the 
development space for that matter, you do have the ability to 
raise that, and that gets vetted throughout multiple processes.
    Ms. Porter. Right. That is how it works, except for who? 
Except for what countries? Do you know?
    Mr. Richardson. I am sorry. I do not, ma'am.
    Ms. Porter. Except for Israel, Ukraine, and Egypt, except 
for those countries. Generally, units would stop receiving 
assistance immediately, but there is that important concern. 
So, when does aid stop immediately? State Department says that 
aid should stop immediately if there is a problem. Does it?
    Mr. Richardson. It totally depends on the circumstances and 
situations.
    Ms. Porter. Does it depend on the country that is getting 
the aid?
    Mr. Richardson. It also depends on the country receiving 
the aid, yes.
    Ms. Porter. So, what country does aid not stop immediately 
under Leahy?
    Mr. Richardson. I would have to go back and look through my 
notes.
    Ms. Porter. You do not know what country that is. It is 
only one in the entire world. Guess what? Except for Israel. 
So, look, Congress has been told time and time and time again 
that the Leahy laws apply to everyone, to every country, and on 
paper they do. But when we pull back the curtain, when we do 
some oversight, not all countries are being treated equally 
when the Leahy law is being implemented, especially our ally, 
Israel.
    Look, if Israel wants to be treated equally, which I am 
for, then let us do it. Let us see the Israel Leahy vetting 
forum standard operating procedure so that we can see exactly 
how it works, how it is different from other countries, and 
what would the Department of State would need to change to 
treat Israel equally. I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. Mr. Fallon?
    Mr. Fallon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not have a marker 
board, so.
    Ms. Porter. I feel bad for you.
    Mr. Fallon. Well, I will just leave it there. This is my 
concern, that we live in a very small world now, and foreign 
aid, I think, is critical. Not all my colleagues agree with 
that, but I have seen, being an amateur student of history, 
what happened after World War I. We became very isolationist. 
We got these big two moats, the Atlantic and the Pacific. We 
feel very safe, and all we got was a worse war 20 years later, 
so I do not want that to happen again. But we also have a 
geopolitical competitor that has 4-and-a-half times the 
population that we have and nearly the same GDP, in China, and 
it is very worrisome.
    So, we need to take heed of what China is doing with their 
Belt and Road Initiative and make sure that we administer our 
foreign aid very, very well, very precisely, and also, here 
domestically, acknowledge that we have a spending problem, we 
have a debt problem, we have a deficit problem on a yearly 
basis. And one of the first things that is going to go, when 
that problem becomes too large to ignore and we hit austerity, 
is foreign aid, and then China is going to rule the roost 
around the world. So, all these issues are interrelated.
    And then another concern I have is this foreign aid that 
is, I feel, very critical, I do not want to see it weaponized, 
and I think this Administration, unfortunately, has done that 
with taking these concepts that are not even largely agreed 
upon in this country, and certainly different cultures find 
some of this stuff very alarming when you are talking about 
promoting abortion, and gender identity ideology, and sometimes 
the climate. Obviously, we need to be concerned about climate, 
but not climate alarmism. We have to live within the bounds of 
reality, and this leftist shift in the foreign aid direction is 
very troubling to me. I think it needs to be more about 
promoting and projecting U.S. security and our prosperity and 
our democratic values, and not spreading ideologies that are 
truly fringe concepts, not only in this country, but 
particularly in other countries that have different cultures.
    So, another very alarming issue to me, and I went on a 
CODEL with Chairman Lynch to Eastern Europe and Ukraine, was--
and I do not want to see--because if enough Ukrainian aid falls 
into the wrong hands, particularly any kind of lethal aid, they 
are going to lose the war. Because we are going to demand, on 
both sides of the aisle, that we do not give them any weaponry 
anymore, and then Kiev is going to fall, Putin is going to win. 
I do not want to see that.
    And what I wanted to ask the witnesses, and thank you all 
so much for being here today, is do you feel that the Biden 
Administration has done a good job in conducting the oversight 
of this aid? Mr. Kenny, you can go first, and just kind of a 
quick ``yes'' or ``no'' or maybe a couple of sentences.
    Mr. Kenny. I cannot speak to the military aid. On the 
economic aid side, yes.
    Mr. Fallon. You think it is? OK.
    Mr. Primorac. So, across the board, I would say no, 
unfortunately.
    Mr. Fallon. No? Mr. Richardson?
    Mr. Richardson. No.
    Mr. Fallon. And that is the thing. Look, I am rooting for 
Ukraine, and I want them to get the aid that they need. I think 
it is an extreme position to do what this Administration has 
done with giving them basically an open checkbook. At the same 
time, I think it is an extreme position to do absolutely 
nothing and let Putin win. So again, we need to thread a needle 
there.
    This is what is concerning to me. On the 11th of January 
this year, the Inspector General of the DoD released a report 
evaluating the DoD's of defense articles provided to Ukraine. 
In the report, the DoD IG determined that as of June 2023, 
``the serial number of inventories for more than'' a little 
over a billion dollars, 59 percent of the total that they 
checked, which was $1.7 billion, ``of the EEUM designated 
defense articles were delinquent.'' That quote is directly from 
DoD's very own press release. I mean, that is 59 percent. And 
then the IG went on to say, IG Storch said, ``Persistent gaps 
as identified in our evaluations may correlate with an 
inability to maintain complete accountability for this critical 
U.S. security assistance.'' So, knowing that, do you believe 
that this is a smart investment? Mr. Richardson, you can start.
    Mr. Richardson. At the end of the day, we cannot allow 
Putin to dominate Ukraine or invade Eastern Europe, and so I 
think you do have to thread that needle. I think there are ways 
to have greater control. Cutting out more of the U.N. 
organizations is certainly a good step. I would advocate for 
more loans versus direct assistance, having more control over 
our military sales, all good ways, but I think you can do it. I 
think we have to do it. We have to find a way.
    Mr. Fallon. Sure.
    Mr. Primorac. I would say that in order to be effective, 
you need to have a strategy. What is the strategy of the 
Administration? I am not clear. When you are having programs in 
foreign aid, you need to have an outcome-based approach toward 
it. Otherwise, they become long-term entitlement programs that 
actually can do more harm than good.
    Mr. Fallon. Mr. Kenny?
    Mr. Kenny. Again, on the economic side, I think that the 
spot checks that USAID are doing are the right approach, and 
there could be more of them, right? Most of the economic 
support is going through the World Bank that, I think, has 
quite good systems in place, and then on to largely pay 
salaries. There is a very easy way to check if that money has 
got where it is meant to go. You ask people, did you get paid? 
And I think USAID is doing some of that. It could do more, and 
that would be a great solution, but I think so far, from the 
evidence we have, the money is getting where it is meant to, on 
the civilian side.
    Mr. Fallon. And, Mr. Chairman, just as a final note, I 
mean, Ukraine has the fourth most natural resources of any 
nation in the world. Loans are something that is very 
intriguing because it does help them defeat Putin. At the same 
time, the American taxpayer can get their money back on a true 
investment. And they will not have the means to repay now, 
maybe not in 5 years, but they will eventually, because when 
this war is over, I do think they are going to be a successful 
economy. They are 30 years into a 50-year journey, typically. 
If you look at South Korea and Taiwan as a model of going from 
authoritarian to a functioning democracy, they are not there 
yet. They were getting there. Putin stood in their way, but I 
think, eventually, that may be a solution that saves the day. 
Mr. Chairman, thank you so much. I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. Thank you. We have a quick request from Ms. 
Porter.
    Ms. Porter. Oh yes. I would like to ask unanimous consent 
to enter into the record an article from the Guttmacher 
Institute, titled, ``The Unprecedented Expansion of the Global 
Gag Rule: Trampling Rights, Health, and Free Speech.''
    Mr. Grothman. So ordered. Thank you.
    Ms. Porter. And also, I ask unanimous consent to enter into 
the record this article from The New York Times, stating that 
the United States does not have any evidence to suggest that 
aid has been diverted or stolen.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. Thank you. We will order that, too.
    Mr. Perry.
    Mr. Perry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. All right. I guess, Mr. 
Richardson, maybe this is coming to you. A few months ago, the 
Department of Defense Inspector General reported that the DoD 
had failed to work with the Ukrainians on tracking weapons and 
equipment going to Ukraine, and that the DoD IG reported that 
nearly 60 percent--that is a lot--60 percent of advanced 
weapons and equipment remain unaccounted for. Now, Ukrainians 
are fighting a war, right? They are fighting for their lives, 
and I do not know if we are collecting dunnage. I do not know 
if we are collecting brass to know how many rounds were fired. 
I do not know how they are accounting for this equipment. It 
says, ``weapons and equipment.'' ``Advanced weapons and 
equipment.'' You can understand expendables like rounds. You 
can understand, potentially, weapons being destroyed, 
especially small arms. Start getting into artillery pieces, 
tracked vehicles, it happens, but they should be able to be 
accounted for, right? There are ways of doing that, even from 
far away. Are we relying on the Ukrainians to account for these 
weapons? I imagine they can assist us, but, you know, we are 
continually asked. We have been asked for half a year now to 
provide more money to Ukraine. Sixty percent unaccounted for.
    Look, it is hard to go back to your constituents who get up 
in the morning, pack a lunch, and head off to work to earn 
money to pay their bills, which they cannot afford right now, 
and then this Administration, the Biden Administration, says, 
well, we need $65 billion to send to Ukraine, and our people 
are saying 60 percent of it, we do not know where in the hell 
it is. What is going on?
    Mr. Richardson. I cannot speak to the specifics of what is 
exactly happening in Ukraine. This all happened after I had 
left the Administration. But I will say that there is a small 
contingent in Kiev at the embassy that will be responsible for 
tracking of equipment. It clearly is completely insufficient, 
as well as the processes that you would need to put in place in 
order to have appropriate tracking. These are mostly DoD 
personnel that would be responsible. It is very hard to get 
outside of Kiev. I assume you have been there. It is hard to 
get to the front in order to do those types of tracking, but 
that is true across the spectrum. And also, on the development 
side or the economic side, we do not have people, Americans or 
people that we trust, that can go and verify because they are 
mostly kept captured in Kiev and been unable to get out and see 
what is actually happening.
    Mr. Perry. So, the system that you described, is this 
something new, or is this a system that currently exists, or at 
least existed during this audit, this report, these findings?
    Mr. Richardson. So, in Ukraine, you know, this would have 
been based upon ever since Putin launched his second attack 
during the Biden Administration, this would have been unique to 
this circumstance. But I would say the challenge with foreign 
aid, the way you get to the most corruption, most waste, fraud, 
and abuse, is when you operate in nonpermissive environments, 
like Gaza, like Afghanistan, like Ukraine, where you cannot get 
out and sort of do the monitoring and evaluation that is 
required in order to provide confidence into the system.
    Mr. Perry. I mean, I got to tell you, your answer that, you 
know, kind of the way it is, and it is not just this way with 
weapon systems, it is this way with economic aid, and the 
other----
    Mr. Richardson. It is a real problem.
    Mr. Perry. You know, it does not engender a lot of 
confidence that I should spend six cents or $6 or $60, let 
alone $65 billion of the people that I represent, my bosses, 
they are out there working their tails off and cannot afford 
their electricity bills, cannot afford their grocery bills, 
cannot afford, you know, a mortgage on a new home. And you are 
not selling me right now. I hate to tell you, you are not 
selling me. I mean, we have got technology.
    I bet if we told Amazon or Mastercard to track every single 
one of these things, whether it was a dollar, a penny, or a 1-
5-5 round, I suspect they would track it as long as they were 
getting paid, and somehow the Federal Government cannot find 
its rear end with both hands, but they sure have a way of 
coming in and telling all the folks in this Committee and 
across Congress, we got to send billions and billions of more 
dollars to Ukraine.
    Mr. Richardson. I a hundred percent agree that we have to 
have more command and control and more monitoring and 
evaluation of foreign assistance, and I go back to the loan 
idea as well that President Trump has floated. I think you have 
to have more skin in the game, more ownership by the 
Ukrainians, more responsibility from the EU. This is ultimately 
going to impact them the most. You know, this problem did not 
start, you know, 2 years ago. This problem started because NATO 
failed to meet its 2-percent obligation. It is very much a 
whole approach that we have to bring back responsibility and 
accountability into the system.
    Mr. Perry. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield.
    Mr. Grothman. I am glad we have Mr. Perry on this 
Committee, but we are going on to Mr. LaTurner.
    Mr. LaTurner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all of 
our witnesses for being here today as we discuss our Nation's 
foreign assistance programs. Foreign aid is not merely an act 
of goodwill. It is a strategic investment in global stability, 
security, and prosperity. It enhances our diplomatic relations, 
expands free markets, and promotes humanitarian values, all 
while being cheaper and safer than war. The money the U.S. 
spends on foreign aid around the world is a worthwhile 
investment when it does what it is intended to do. In 2023 
alone, the U.S. spent $52 billion in foreign assistance to over 
200 countries and regions. As Members of this Committee, we owe 
it to our constituents to ensure these funds are used 
responsibly, transparently, and effectively to achieve their 
intended goals.
    Under the Biden Administration, this has not been the case. 
One of President Biden's first actions was to reverse a 
decision made under the Trump Administration and restore 
funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, despite 
mounting evidence tying the organization to Iran-backed Hamas 
terrorists. It is now being reported that at least a dozen 
UNRWA employees willingly participated in the murder, rape, and 
kidnapping of innocent Israelis on October 7. Further, since 
President Biden's botched withdrawal from Afghanistan, the U.S. 
has provided $11.3 billion in foreign aid to the region. This 
past August, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan 
Reconstruction, John Sopko, testified before this Committee. In 
his testimony, he stated, ``It is clear from our work that the 
Taliban is using various methods to divert U.S. aid dollars.'' 
Not only did President Biden and his Administration leave 
behind billions of dollars in military equipment to the 
Taliban, but now our tax dollars are helping fund their 
ruthless operations.
    The Biden Administration has also weaponized U.S. foreign 
aid to force their liberal agenda on the rest of the world, 
pushing taxpayer-funded abortion, climate alarmism, and DEI 
initiatives. The status quo from President Biden is 
unacceptable and unsustainable. We need to uphold our 
commitment to our allies while cutting wasteful and ineffective 
spending to better protect Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. 
I look forward to hearing from our witnesses.
    Mr. Richardson, it is clear that our foreign aid efforts 
involved a multitude of offices, agencies, spanning the 
government. I want to talk about the coordination happening 
across these entities. Currently, there are over 20 U.S. 
Government agencies engaged in our foreign assistance efforts. 
What can we do to ensure that our efforts among these agencies 
are strategically aligned and coordinated to maximize the 
impact and efficiency?
    Mr. Richardson. Yes. Thank you for that statement and for 
the question. As you mentioned, there are over 20 Federal 
Government agencies responsible for foreign assistance. So, we 
talk about USAID, State, MCC, DFC, but we have got Treasury out 
there, Commerce, Agriculture, Justice Department, DHS. They are 
all sort of operating in a complete stove-type manner, and it 
is supposed to be coordinated at the post, so it is supposed to 
be coordinated by the Ambassador at a particular mission. The 
problem is it does not happen that way, and, ultimately, the 
Ambassador has lots of things they are focused on, and God 
bless them, they are doing hard work, but the funding decisions 
about what types of programs are going to these posts are 
happening here in Washington.
    So, you really need to centralize it, have a director of 
foreign assistance who is actually accountable, can bring all 
the foreign assistance agencies together, be very clear about 
what we are trying to accomplish, be clear that this is aligned 
to our national security goals, as you mentioned. How do we 
counter China? How do we bolster trade? How do we create 
prosperity here in America? And then making sure that all 
Federal Government is working together to achieve that.
    Mr. LaTurner. I appreciate the answer and look forward to 
talking to you more offline about this. Let us switch gears 
real quick. President Trump has floated the idea of loaning 
money in Ukraine. Can you elaborate on why loan-based and 
conditional assistance can be useful in certain circumstances?
    Mr. Richardson. Yes, absolutely. I really think this is a 
larger question, not just of loans in Ukraine, but we really 
have an opportunity to reexamine how we give assistance more 
broadly. We have been so accustomed to writing a check to the 
U.N. or to an NGO or to a for-profit company, and that is just 
the way it always works. We really need to think about 
conditional assistance, holding countries accountable, doing 
more investments. When it comes to loans, you have an 
opportunity to make sure that Ukraine has more skin in the 
game, it brings in more accountability, it drives the 
Ukrainians to actually care more about these dollars than they 
would today, and that is really what you want. And as your 
colleague mentioned, Ukraine is going to succeed if they can 
win this war and they can keep Russia out of their backyard. 
They really have an opportunity to be very prosperous. That is 
great, we should encourage that, we should want that, and then 
the American people should be paid back for every dollar that 
they spent in Ukraine.
    Mr. LaTurner. Mr. Primorac, I have a whole host of 
questions for you, but I have run out of time, so I will be 
submitting those.
    I yield back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    Mr. Grothman. Mr. Biggs.
    Mr. Biggs. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the 
witnesses. I apologize. I am in a markup next door and have 
been there a better part of the day. So, I want to talk about 
something slightly different, perhaps. It has been well 
documented that nongovernmental organizations are down at the 
Southern border in my home state of Arizona and other border 
states, including south of the border, helping to facilitate 
and escalate the Biden border crisis. DHS Secretary Alejandro 
Mayorkas was a board member at one of those NGOs, HIAS, an 
organization which in Fiscal Year 2022, received nearly 50 
percent of its revenues from grants from governmental agencies, 
including the State Department and Department of Homeland 
Security. HIAS publicly congratulated Secretary Mayorkas for 
his appointment, specifically noting that he was a primary 
architect of the DACA program. In turn, with this web of 
coordination between the Biden Administration, the NGOs, and 
the cartels, it encourages more unchecked and unfettered 
illegal immigration, all at the expense of the American people.
    So, Mr. Richardson, please explain to me how these NGOs are 
coordinating with Secretary Mayorkas and the Biden 
Administration to continue with this illegal mass migration.
    Mr. Richardson. Yes, you bet. The coordination is happening 
in two ways. The U.S. Government, mostly through the State 
Department, but other avenues as well, will fund IOM, the 
International Organization of Migration. They in turn have a 
network of NGOs that they directly fund. So, these NGOs are 
getting funding directly from the State Department, USAID, 
Homeland Security, and 20 other government agencies, most 
likely. Probably no one knows who is getting multiple U.S. 
Government grants all at the same time. And then they are also 
receiving funding from the U.N. Obviously, the problem is that 
these organizations are encouraging and abetting illegal 
immigration into our country, which the Biden Administration 
keeps saying that it is opposed to doing it and yet continues 
to support organizations that are doing just that.
    Mr. Biggs. And FEMA also helps provide them dollars as 
well. Another NGO, Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services, 
reported more than $93 million in U.S. Government grants in its 
2021 financial statement, meaning that taxpayer-funded grants 
accounted for more than 80 percent of its total support. 
Additionally, a DHS OIG report found that 18 different NGOs 
receiving a total of $66 million in funding did not always 
comply with funding and application guidance. Are there any 
accountability measures in place for NGOs who misuse taxpayer 
funds to prevent them from receiving future dollars, or is 
Congress and the Biden Administration going to continue to fund 
this illegal mass migration operation? And I think we all know 
the answer to that.
    Mr. Richardson. Yes. Like, at the end of the day, the Biden 
Administration seems committed to funding these NGOs. If there 
are documented problems, there are processes in order to sort 
of blacklist an NGO, but these NGOs are doing exactly what the 
Biden Administration wants, which is to provide comfort and 
support for illegal immigration across our Southern border.
    Mr. Biggs. Yes. It is an organized, well-oiled machine 
working to carrying out this mass migration. Mr. Primorac, is 
that how you say it?
    Mr. Primorac. Yes.
    Mr. Biggs. What are these NGOs specifically doing to help 
illegal migrants once they cross into the U.S. or even as they 
travel up to the United States?
    Mr. Primorac. Congressman, what I would like to do to 
answer that question is to start in Central America, 
specifically, where the root causes strategy in which we are 
spending, you know, billions of dollars in order to prevent 
them to coming up in the first place. But when you start 
looking at what the programs are, for instance, it is a $50 
million regional center to promote gender equity. There is one 
to promote intersex legal reforms. These are the kind of 
projects that we are pushing. And second, no matter how much we 
are going to spend in foreign aid in Central America or other 
places, when you look at the remittances that go back to 
Central America, you are talking a fact of tens of billions of 
dollars, so a factor of 20, 30, or 40 times more than the 
foreign aid that we are providing these countries, so it does 
not work. It is simply a waste of money.
    We need a strong border. That is what is going to prevent 
them from coming into the United States, but there is no 
incentive for these countries to reform economically as long as 
they see billions and billions of money, of dollars coming in 
from remittances, whether they are legal or illegal immigrants.
    Mr. Biggs. And I would say tacitly, that indicates that 
there is, if not direct coordination, there is certainly 
complicity with the cartels who are managing our Southern 
border, and that is a critical component to why we should not 
be doing this. Thank you for entertaining my questions.
    Mr. Chairman, I have some UC requests.
    Mr. Grothman. OK.
    Mr. Biggs. I would like to introduce into the record three 
different articles. One, ``NGOs Use American Tax Dollars to 
Relocate Migrants.'' One called, ``Biden Administration Sends 
Millions to Religious Nonprofits Facilitating Mass Illegal 
Migration.'' The third one by actually one of our witnesses 
today, is, ``Foreign Aid Can't Stem Illegal Immigration: The 
Case of Guatemala.''
    Mr. Grothman. So ordered.
    Mr. Biggs. Thank you. I yield back.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I am just going to give myself 3 more 
minutes, and then I guess we will wrap it up. It was a very 
interesting hearing, but we will give a question, I guess, to 
you, Mr. Richardson. Over the years, there have been several 
witnesses before this Committee and Subcommittee emphasizing 
the need to monitor and evaluate the contractors and grantees.
    Mr. Richardson. Mm-hmm.
    Mr. Grothman. The Special Inspector for Afghanistan 
Reconstruction told us instances where contractors with 
questionable backgrounds still were getting lucrative contracts 
and were later found to have engaged in corrupt practices or 
even supported insurgent groups. Like Afghanistan, the USAID 
Inspector General testified in 2019 before the Approps 
Committee that USAID, their limitations in mitigating 
implemented risks, have contributed to corrupt schemes across 
Iraq, Syria, and Africa. Can you tell us what tools we can use 
for USAID and the State Department to vet these contractors and 
grantees better?
    Mr. Richardson. Yes. So, there is a very limited vetting 
program for partners that is focused exclusively on terrorism 
and only in a certain number of countries, all in the Middle 
East. I would strongly argue that we really have to expand the 
vetting process, make sure that everyone that receives U.S. 
taxpayer dollars, we know who they are, but not just the main 
contract, right? So, we will submit a contract for $50 billion 
with an organization. They will then, in turn, give 50 percent 
of that to other folks. We need to know who those other folks 
are. We need to know who is actually implementing assistance on 
the ground and be able to track who these people are. Are they 
bad actors, not just related to terrorism, but cartels, human 
traffickers, poachers. There is a whole host of folks who want 
to be inside our system who could manipulate our system.
    The other thing I would say is when we talk about 
monitoring and evaluation, what the development people are 
really telling you is that if I purchased an apple, you give me 
an apple, and that means we have success. Well, what is the 
goal? What are we trying to accomplish in that country, in that 
region, globally, and how does that apple add up to anything? 
We do not track that. That is the big missing middle in terms 
of our strategies. These countries, our host countries, our 
Ambassadors, our teams, will create lofty goals about what we 
are trying to do, and then every one of these little programs 
will do monitoring and evaluation that just proves that they 
are accomplishing something, but they are not actually proving 
that they are accomplishing a larger objective.
    For the next stage of monitoring and evaluation, I really 
encourage the Congress to pass legislation to really force the 
Administration to align projects to actualize strategic goals.
    Mr. Grothman. We will see if we can do something 
statutorily. I guess that is it. I wish we had another half an 
hour, but we are not going to.
    OK. In closing, I want to thank our witnesses once again, 
for their testimony. I yield to Ranking Member Lynch, I guess, 
for the second here. Do you want to do any closing remarks?
    Mr. Lynch. No, I am good. Thank you.
    Mr. Grothman. OK. I will recognize myself. OK. I would like 
to thank you all for being here. I think we have covered so 
many different areas. We are weighing in on social issues that 
I wish we could spend more time on that on countries abroad 
where we are just attacking their religion and trying to drive 
their children away from what would be traditional values, even 
traditional values in this country. We are wasting money right 
and left. We are spending money, say, in the Middle East, to 
undermine our ally, Israel. In this country, we are spending 
money to encourage more people to come across the line. I mean, 
there is almost nowhere I have seen since in Congress that we 
have money spent more, not only frivolously, against our own 
interests, and I think we are going to do some follow-up 
questions here eventually, but either way, I wish all of you 
luck in trying to get the whole foreign aid establishment back 
on the straight and narrow.
    So, with that and without objection, all Members have 5 
legislative days within which to submit materials and 
additional written questions, which will be forwarded to the 
witnesses.
    If there is no further business, without objection, the 
Subcommittee stands adjourned.
    [Whereupon, at 4:11 p.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]

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