Sen. Ernst: USAID Wouldn’t Tell Congress How It Spent Billions

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) made headlines in recent days for deliberately resisting President Donald Trump’s attempts to purge the federal government of bureaucratic rot. Before it began slow-walking and even physically blocking Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency from evaluating its necessity to the federal government, however, the taxpayer-funded USAID repeatedly resisted congressional supervision of its spending habits.

Republican Sen. Joni Ernst disclosed in an X Spaces forum with DOGE Head Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy on Sunday that USAID issued “all kinds of threats” to the Republican and her office for her attempt to “exercise my oversight capacity in Congress.”

Ernst first pressed USAID on how it used its tax dollars to pay the facilities and administrative costs outlined in Negotiated Indirect Cost Rate Agreements (NICRAs) in November 2022.

The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse which means it is the supreme authority over all federal taxpayer spending. USAID, despite being funded by Congres, refused to comply with Ernst’s demands, she said.

When USAID finally responded in February 2023, the agency claimed it did not “have a system to track or report on this data, as it is not possible to compare indirect costs between for-profit and nonprofit organizations at the rate level.”

One week later, Ernst’s staff debunked this claim by sending USAID a link “to a publicly reported NICRA database.” USAID confirmed the existence of a database but once again refused to indulge Ernst’s demands.

This time, the agency claimed that divulging NICRA information was impossible because it would violate several federal laws including “the Economic Espionage Act, Protection of Trade Secrets Act, and Disclosure of Confidential Information Act.”

A few days later, USAID landed on its final attempt to stonewall: “The Agency protects the confidential business information of its implementing partners, including NICRAs.”

“It is longstanding executive branch practice, under Presidents of both parties, to protect confidential business information from disclosure outside the scope of a formal oversight request by a committee of jurisdiction,” the agency told Ernst’s office over email.

In April 2023, Ernst and GOP Rep. Michael McCaul launched an official congressional investigation into USAID spending. They pressed USAID once again to answer for the billions of American tax dollars it funneled through NICRAs starting in 2021. The pair emphasized that Congress is constitutionally enabled to conduct oversight and ensure “that such funds are not unduly wasted.”

“We understand that some indirect costs are a necessary expense when delivering humanitarian assistance; however, we have serious concerns over the lack of oversight regarding the issuing and review of your agency’s NICRAs with USAID’s partners. We fear NICRAs have ballooned due to a lack of stewardship and care,” Ernst and McCaul warned.

Months later in November 2023, Ernst demanded that USAID Administrator Samantha Powers hand over crucial information about her agency’s spending — including sending billions of American tax dollars to fund pet projects and small businesses in Ukraine — but, as Ernst noted Sunday, was again ignored.

Eventually, Ernst’s staff was permitted access to “very limited data” about USAID’s indirect costs.

“They were allowed to go into a room and they couldn’t take notes. They were on camera the whole time. They couldn’t remove any of the information,” Ernst told Musk.

Even with “very limited data,” Ernst said her staff discovered USAID spent “anywhere from 50 to 60 percent” on indirect costs which could range from someone’s “rent in Paris” to a “fancy dinner to entertain whomever.”

USAID did not immediately respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.

Ernst’s struggle to hold USAID accountable frustrated Musk who called the agency’s obstruction of her repeated attempts to investigate “outrageous.”

“It’s outrageous that a taxpayer-funded organization would threaten a U.S. Senator who is simply trying to figure out if American taxpayer money is being spent correctly and not fraudulently,” he said.

USAID’s shenanigans, however, didn’t start or stop with hamstringing Ernst.

USAID Security Director John Voorhees and his deputy Brian McGill were reportedly placed on leave over the weekend after they tried to physically block DOGE enforcers from accessing their systems. Voorhees and McGill’s misconduct, which Washington, D.C. District Attorney Edward Martin Jr. hinted could result in prosecution, came mere days after acting agency administrator Jason Gray placed dozens of USAID employees on administrative leave for, as RealClear Politics reported, “conspiring to circumvent Trump’s executive orders” on international funding and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

In recent days, officials have communicated plans to fold USAID into the State Department. By Monday, agency personnel were instructed to stay home and the website went dark while DOGE began its investigation into USAID’s advance of what Musk called “radically left causes throughout the world including things that are anti-American.”

In addition to squandering a majority of its taxpayer dollars on overhead, USAID has wielded Americans hard-earned money for international censorship, CIA-like regime change operations, and meals for terrorists.

Jordan Boyd is a staff writer at The Federalist and producer of The Federalist Radio Hour. Her work has also been featured in The Daily Wire, Fox News, and RealClearPolitics. Jordan graduated from Baylor University where she majored in political science and minored in journalism. Follow her on X @jordanboydtx.