Maybe they have already uncovered it and are trying to figure out how to handle it… but this is my prediction.
I think that they will find that Congress has been laundering money to themselves for a long time. I’m not even optimistic enough to think it will be the left. I think it will be a lot of both parties.
Congress sends money to USAID and similar agencies. This agencies dole out money to charities. Those charities can then pay it out as donations to politicians and as salary to people who then can donate to politicians after an acceptable amount of charity has been done as a cover.
Ultimately I think there’s a pipeline of sorts, taking tax payer money and passing it through different agencies and charities till a large portion of it ends up back in the personal and/or campaign hands of the politicians.
If this does turn out to be the case, what happens? Do we go full banana republic and start arresting politicians? Do we ignore it and let the political class have their hands in the cookie jar like the former blok states? What’s the path out?
As someone with some experience with this, contracts were strictly monitored and managed by contracting officers at USAID. Everything you do needs approval and there are countless restrictions on what and how you can spend government funds. This notion that, “Nobody knows where the money goes.” is complete nonsense. Are there bad apples, sure. Is there waste, sure. Is this all some kind of pipeline created to benefit politicians. No. Laughably, no.
From the article. That does not seem nefarious but even if this is confirmed I know it will not be enough for some.
I am sure there are a ton of pols on the take and yes any politician involved in corruption needs to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law .
An administration official said that three dozen people received the email and that the information to be destroyed was “courtesy content” — information or documents given to them as a courtesy by other agencies.
“No documents relevant to litigation are classified — therefore, they are not part of this directive. They are clearing out their building because it’ll be used by Customs and Border Patrol,” the official said.
“These are very old documents. They are in complete compliance with the Federal Records Act of 1950,” the official added. “Everyone involved in this process had a secret clearance or higher and was approved by the bureau of the documents that they were handling. A majority of the content is courtesy content. Most original copies are still in classified computer systems.”
A “contracting officer” allowed funding for sex change operations in Guatemala. Some other “contracting officer” approved money to go to tourism promotion in Egypt. Ditto transgender comic books in South America. And LGBTQ sesame Street for Muslim countries. And musicals in Ireland. And… we’ve all seen the lists. Likely there are more examples to come.
It’s why USAID was disbanded. New program under the State Dept. New directors. New managers. New “contracting officers” or whatever other management/approval chain is needed.
Unfortunately, you can’t trace the specific dollars that went to USAID. Funds went in, and funds went out. How can you show that “those-funds” which went to “that-charity” (and then once “that-charity” got them, they were mixed with all the other incoming funds from other sources) were the specific dollars that went to congressman-X? “Oh, we didn’t use “those-funds” when we supported “that-PAC”. No sir-ee!”
No question about it. Money is fungible. Income from “this-source” frees up money that was otherwise going to have to pay the expenses of the charity. It has been a point of contention for years when Planned Parenthood says that none of their federal funding goes toward abortions. Or to political activism (of which they do a TON.) So it’s not a leap to wonder if USAID money was finding its way back into the pockets of politicians. I just submit that the proof of actual money trail will be impossible to identify.
If you are closing a foreign office, and the documents aren’r original, it would probably be the easiest way they didn’t fall into other peoples hands?
IOr you could fly the copies home to…shred them here?
