USAID routed funds to Soros-aligned causes, terrorists and drag queens
Before the Trump administration closed USAID’s doors, the agency regularly routed funding to causes aligned with George Soros’ nonprofit empire, terrorists and drag queens.
The agency came under scrutiny from the new administration over failures to ensure transparency in its funding to organizations across the globe and concerns that the leadership was not responding to explicit policy directives from the State Department and the wider executive branch to align its programs with Trump policies and the U.S. national interest.
In recent days, the Trump administration identified USAID programs ranging from contraceptives for Afghanistan to LGBT diversity programs for European countries as clear evidence that foreign aid needed to be paused and reevaluated, a task that fell to the Rubio State Department.
The development agency for years also funneled money to several nonprofit groups that also received substantial backing from components of George Soros’ empire. Some previously came under scrutiny during the Obama administration for “democracy promotion” and judicial reform efforts in European countries that critics claimed promoted leftist politics.
For example, U.S. government spending records show that the East-West Management Institute, which is in part backed by Soros’ Open Society Foundations, received more than $260 million over the years in grants from USAID to, among other things, promote the rule of law in Georgia, strengthen civil society in Uganda, and advance Serbia’s accession talks with the European Union.
That same nonprofit group came under scrutiny during the Obama administration after Judicial Watch uncovered government records and communications showing that the East-West Management Institute’s “Justice for All” campaign in Albania received $9 million in funding from USAID...
Those same Senators also raised concerns about a similar Soros-backed program in neighboring Macedonia where they said a local affiliate called Foundation Open Society-Macedonia received backing from USAID through the Open Society Foundations and pushed “a progressive agenda.”
Other Soros-backed organizations that received funding from both his Open Society Foundations network and USAID include the Anti-Corruption Action Center in Ukraine and Transparency International.
According to the group's own records, the Anti-Corruption Action Center began receiving funding from USAID the same year the Maidan Revolution overthrew Ukraine’s elected, Russian-friendly President Viktor Yanukovych. The group, by its own admission, was heavily critical of Yanukovych’s government and ministers, which aligned with U.S. State Department policy at the time. During the 2014 Maidan Revolution, then-Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland visited Ukraine and was recorded on a leaked phone call discussing how the United States could influence the formation of a new government in Kyiv...
George Soros’ Open Society Foundations did not respond to a request for comment.
After temporarily shutting down USAID operation, the Trump administration defended the move, citing other left-wing causes that received funding grants from the agency. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt highlighted several when speaking with reporters on Monday, including $1.5 million for diversity measures in Serbia, $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru, and $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland.
House Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Brian Mast, R-Fla., also flagged other examples of USAID funding, including $15 million for condoms sent to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and over $3 million for “being LGBTQ in the Caribbean.”
The government watchdog overseeing the agency also warned USAID’s leadership in a stinging January memo that it had created serious "vulnerabilities" by doling out billions of tax dollars to overseas countries and groups without fulling vetting for terrorists. That inspector general’s report also determined that USAID grants were being insufficiently monitored.
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