USAID, led by Samantha Power, financed terrorism.
From the linked article:
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) provided millions of dollars in funding to extremist groups tied to designated terrorist organizations and their allies, according to a report published by Middle East Forum, a U.S. think tank.
"The Middle East Forum’s multi-year study of USAID and State Department spending has uncovered $164 million of approved grants to radical organizations, with at least $122 million going to groups aligned with designated terrorists and their supporters," the conservative think tank wrote in its report published Feb. 4.
The Middle East Forum’s report focuses specifically on funds from USAID and the State Department that wound up in the hands of radical groups and organizations tied to terrorism.
Sam Westrop, the director of the Middle East Forum’s counter-extremism project, Islamist Watch, posted a highlight thread on X of the report’s findings, describing the examples as “horrifying”.
"USAID won’t even tell us how much they gave the Unlimited Friends Association, a Gaza terror charity which operates with help from Hamas. The head of the charity promises to ‘cleanse’ their land of ‘impure Jews’," Westrop posted in the thread of an example.
"USAID gave millions to Islamic Relief, whose Gaza branch openly works with senior terrorist officials in Gaza, including Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad. who promised that Hamas would repeat Oct 7 attacks ‘time and again until Israel is annihilated’," he posted in another example from the report.
USAID funds totaling $125,000 were found in the hands of the Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) in 2015, despite the U.S. Treasury designating the group a global terrorist organization in 2004 due to its ties to Osama bin Laden.
The agency announced on its website on Tuesday, Feb. 4, that nearly all personnel would be placed on leave by Friday, making a few exceptions for those in roles related to “mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs”. Its overseas missions reportedly also had been told to shut down.
USAID was established in 1961 under the Kennedy administration, operating as an independent agency that works closely with the State Department to allocate civilian foreign aid. Under Rubio, the agency could be abolished after its reorganization over the coming days, he said in a letter to bipartisan lawmakers on Feb. 3.