Brian Mast Leads House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing On State Department Foreign Assistance

4 months ago

The House Foreign Affairs Committee holds a hearing on State Department Foreign Assistance Grants.

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Transcript

00:00:00the potential to be a force multiplier for U.S. interest while also positively impacting

00:00:04the lives of millions of people around the world.

00:00:08When done correctly, our foreign assistance demonstrates the best of America and enhances

00:00:12our security and economic goals.

00:00:15But foreign assistance is not charity, as both the Chairman and Ranking Member have

00:00:18mentioned, and it should never be used to advance ideological or personal agendas.

00:00:22It should only be used to advance the core national security interests and goals of the

00:00:26United States.

00:00:28As someone who has spent a lot of time here on the Hill at USAID and the State Department

00:00:32working on foreign assistance, I know that this committee has seen that our efforts don't

00:00:36always meet these expectations.

00:00:38We have seen grants undermine our closest allies, promote activities inconsistent with

00:00:44the culture or religion of partner nations, and fund projects that fail to advance America's

00:00:49core national security interest.

00:00:52But the world of grants at the State Department is complex.

00:00:55Unfortunately, we don't always have clear goals, clear approaches, or a clear model

00:01:00for success.

00:01:02Part of the challenge is honestly having too much money in the system.

00:01:05Part of it is an over-politicization of foreign assistance.

00:01:08And still another is that foreign assistance is just tough.

00:01:11It's hard to do in hard places.

00:01:15The first step of the process is to clearly articulate goals and objectives when approaching

00:01:20foreign assistance grants.

00:01:22As such, our grants should be aligned to the national security interest of the United States.

00:01:27Unfortunately, I do fear that the State Department has taken a far too decentralized approach,

00:01:33resulting in fairly murky goals and a lack of direction.

00:01:38Grants at the State Department are also too stovepiped, with often too little socialization

00:01:42across the enterprise.

00:01:45Functional bureaus don't always engage regional bureaus, embassies, or other agencies doing

00:01:49similar work, specifically USAID.

00:01:53This can often result in inherently less impactful programming, because I believe deeply that

00:01:58the best ideas have broad engagement and broad buy-in.

00:02:02The next step in the grant process is designing the Notice for Funding Opportunities, which

00:02:06provides the roadmap for achieving objectives.

00:02:10During this process, we decide what type of grantee we want, what metrics will indicate

00:02:15success.

00:02:16Recently, and all too often, notices seem to be written to appeal to specific groups

00:02:20with specific ideological bents.

00:02:23This can generate outcomes incompatible with good diplomacy, as the values and ideas inherent

00:02:29in these grants can fundamentally be at odds with the local culture where they are intended

00:02:34to be implemented.

00:02:36This can alienate our partner countries, hamper development, and hinder U.S. strategic goals

00:02:42in the region.

00:02:44Furthermore, politicizing foreign assistance, which already does have low support among

00:02:49the American people, is just fundamentally unwise.

00:02:52I would argue that it's important for us to return to a much more traditional diplomatic

00:02:56and development approach that is focusing our attention on real national security priorities,

00:03:02albeit with new tools and paradigms, with sharper monitoring and evaluation approaches.

00:03:08This brings me to monitoring and evaluation and outcomes.

00:03:11Too often, our grants do not seem to meet common-sense monitoring and evaluation standards.

00:03:17For example, grant awardees essentially write their own monitoring and evaluation requirements,

00:03:22including a focus on self-reporting quality versus quantitative data.

00:03:27This results in weak performance standards that rarely, if ever, include an impact assessment,

00:03:32as the chairman mentioned.

00:03:33And monitoring in the field is often non-existent.

00:03:36State department officials rarely venture out from the capital city to see the progress

00:03:41of America's investments.

00:03:43Part of the challenge is simply the amount of funding in the system, and another part

00:03:48is the structural and cultural issues at the State Department.

00:03:52From the macro perspective, I fear the problem is even worse.

00:03:56Requirements are focused on inputs and outputs rather than outcomes.

00:04:01The State Department is pretty good at tracking inputs.

00:04:03Most bureaus can tell you whether the grant was used for the intended purpose.

00:04:07However, we fail to track whether the U.S. government is having the intended impact in

00:04:12the country or sector that we're trying to reach, or whether this type of program that

00:04:16we're actually funding is the most impactful approach.

00:04:20To that end, awardees should not write their own monitoring and evaluation requirements.

00:04:24Instead, I would argue that a team of professionals in and out of the associated funding office

00:04:29and bureaus should draft them as part of the development and review process.

00:04:33Let me close with this.

00:04:35America is not alone on the foreign assistance stage.

00:04:38We are competing with nefarious and self-serving actors, including the Chinese Communist Party.

00:04:43The CCP knows exactly what it's trying to achieve with its foreign assistance-like efforts,

00:04:47from capturing strategic ports to controlling rare earth metals.

00:04:51There's no confusion or lack of focus on their part.

00:04:55Our foreign assistance efforts are inherently more noble than the CCP, but we owe a better

00:05:01system to the world and the American people.

00:05:03Again, I appreciate the committee's efforts to dig into this process.

00:05:07If we get it right, we'll not only direct our resources in a manner that advances America's

00:05:12national security, but also significantly improves our diplomatic efforts and achieve

00:05:17the best possible outcomes at home and abroad.

00:05:21Again, thanks so much for this hearing.

00:05:24Thank you, Mr. Richardson.

00:05:25I now recognize Mr. Destra for his opening statement.

00:05:27Thank you, Chairman Mask, Ranking Member Crow, and distinguished members of the committee.

00:05:42Thank you for scheduling the hearing, and thank you for inviting us to be here.

00:05:47I'm going to do, in my five minutes of remarks, something I learned at the State Department,

00:05:54which is to put the bottom line up front.

00:05:58And that is, my specific recommendation today, because what you all do here is legislate,

00:06:05is that Congress require all federal agencies, not just the foreign assistance programs,

00:06:11to make detailed information about all unclassified grant awards and subawards, grantees and subgrantees,

00:06:18implementation and evaluation available online, grants.gov, usaspending.gov, and foreignassistance.gov.

00:06:27As soon as the money is obligated.

00:06:31Otherwise, you run into the problems that Representative Crow talked about.

00:06:36You know, the idea of, well, what's the agenda here?

00:06:40I'm going to be considerably less charitable than my friend Jim Richardson, because when

00:06:45I got to the State Department, one of the first battles I fought, literally the first

00:06:50day I got there, was a member of my staff who wanted to go to another country in the

00:06:57Middle East and visit with all the grantees.

00:07:02And the answer was, absolutely not.

00:07:06You know, and as the newly naive Assistant Secretary, it was like, well, I don't understand.

00:07:13To which the response was, well, you know, that's very sensitive information.

00:07:18You know, and my reaction, my initial reaction was, well, don't I sign the checks?

00:07:24You know, and the answer was, well, you don't understand.

00:07:26That's very sensitive.

00:07:29To which the response was to hold up my badge and say, I have a higher security clearance

00:07:33than you do.

00:07:35And so what we're seeing here, if you take all that foreign assistance money and all

00:07:42the grants literally that go from the top down to the ground level, whether it's in

00:07:49Sudan or Belize or wherever, you know, we don't know the story of American foreign assistance

00:07:58programs unless we see what happens on the ground.

00:08:02That was the point that Jim was making.

00:08:05It's like, yeah, we spent a lot of money.

00:08:07You know, it took me a while to figure out that at DRL, we do a lot of training programs.

00:08:12We spend a ton of money on training.

00:08:15You know, the question is, what did they learn?

00:08:19And when I spoke with some folks from North Africa and asked them, after having gone through

00:08:24the training, whether or not they knew what a whip list was, or they knew that they could

00:08:31go visit their representative down in their home district, they said, wow, we never learned

00:08:36that.

00:08:37To which I turned to the staff and said, well, what did they learn?

00:08:43So what we're seeing here, and I think that Representative Crow kind of accurately captures

00:08:51the problem when he says, and I don't think it's unreasonable, by writing blank checks

00:08:59to departments and administrative agencies across the federal government, Congress is

00:09:04funding and maintaining a vast counter state.

00:09:11It's actively violating the constitutional laws of the United States by funding censorship

00:09:16programs designed to limit speech at home and abroad.

00:09:20It attacks religious freedom at home and abroad.

00:09:24And it spreads noxious theories about racial and cultural identity, both at home and abroad.

00:09:31Those programs sometimes, not always, in fact, not most of the time, poison bilateral relations

00:09:39with other countries with incessant demands and funding for internal political change

00:09:44and cultural change, while failing to notice coup and growing opposition in friendly countries

00:09:51through its heavy handed, and I would submit, unconstitutional use of sanctions tools against

00:09:58both friends, rivals, and American citizens.

00:10:03The counter state that this Congress is funding and maintaining is comprised of unelected

00:10:08and unaccountable bureaucrats who no longer make any pretense of the fact that they are

00:10:13politically accountable when they actively resist efforts by Congress and the executive

00:10:18branch to oversee billions of dollars in federal grants for both foreign and domestic programs.

00:10:25Ideologically driven NGOs and international organizations who receive those billions through

00:10:30an opaque grants process that puts a premium on spending the money by the end of the fiscal

00:10:36year rather than by measuring outcomes in the places where they deliver services.

00:10:41And then lastly, a small and shrinking group of large NGOs and international development

00:10:47consulting firms who are the partners of choice for the bureaucracy because unlike NGOs on

00:10:53the ground in country, they have the capacity to comply with the mind numbing requirements

00:11:00of the federal acquisition regulations.

00:11:03And so I'm going to stop here and leave time for questions, but there's plenty of data

00:11:09I can add.

00:11:10I've got figures from Haiti, the Sahel, Afghanistan that will show you we got precious little

00:11:17for the money we spent.

00:11:18Thank you.

00:11:19Thank you, Mr. Destro.

00:11:20The chair now recognizes Mr. Malinowski for five minutes.

00:11:25Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Crow.

00:11:27It's great to see you.

00:11:28Great to be back in this room.

00:11:30Chairman Mass, thank you for leading us off by reminding everybody that today is the 35th

00:11:35anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

00:11:37It's a day we always have to remember, but it also, I think, helps to ground this conversation

00:11:43in what's important, a reminder that we are still in a struggle between authoritarianism

00:11:47and dictatorship in the world, and we need to be giving the State Department the tools

00:11:51to stay in that fight.

00:11:54As you know, before I came to Congress, I was also the assistant secretary for the DRL

00:12:00Bureau of Democracy and Human Rights.

00:12:02This is the State Department's front-line expeditionary force in supporting people who

00:12:06are struggling for freedom and democracy around the world.

00:12:09A couple of things about the budget.

00:12:12It's grown quite a bit in the last few years, not because any president has demanded it,

00:12:16but because Congress has demanded it, and the main champions, in fact, of DRL's budget

00:12:22in Congress, I would say, have been Republican appropriators in the last few years.

00:12:26It's certainly been bipartisan.

00:12:28Another really important fact for you guys to keep in mind, DRL's grant programs around

00:12:34the world, 85 percent of them are earmarked by Congress for specific countries and purposes.

00:12:40This is not a blank check.

00:12:41This is a part of the State Department that is probably the most directed, the most overseen

00:12:46by Congress of any part of that department.

00:12:51I want to make sure everyone has a clear picture of what these funds do every single day.

00:12:57They support Chinese activists who have kept the spirit of that June 4th movement alive,

00:13:02helping them to break through the Chinese Communist Party's censorship and propaganda

00:13:07efforts in documenting their crimes.

00:13:09They help to smuggle news and books and TV shows and movies to North Korea so that the

00:13:15people of that closed communist dictatorship will know what life is like in democratic

00:13:19countries.

00:13:20They help Afghan women stay safe as they fight to get their rights back.

00:13:25When our military left, these grant programs remained.

00:13:30In Iran, they help dissidents safely access the global Internet when the clerical regime

00:13:35tries to shut them off.

00:13:36They help Cubans document human rights abuses by their government and press for the release

00:13:41of political prisoners.

00:13:42They've empowered Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq and other parts of the

00:13:47Middle East to fight for their rights under very difficult circumstances.

00:13:52Their program I got started, they support anti-corruption investigators in every part

00:13:57of the world.

00:13:58And when we think about our contest with China and Russia, this is incredibly important.

00:14:02Every year, DRL grantees expose corrupt business deals that the Chinese government in particular

00:14:10is foisting on countries in Africa and Asia and Latin America, very much in our interest.

00:14:17Putin and Xi hate these programs.

00:14:19They hate what we do with this money.

00:14:21That's why they are pushing all of their allies in the developing world to pass these

00:14:26copycat laws, criminalizing these kinds of partnerships with the United States and other

00:14:32Western aid agencies.

00:14:34There are hundreds of thousands of people in the country of Georgia on the streets the

00:14:38last few weeks protesting that kind of law.

00:14:40They know what's at stake.

00:14:42So does their Russian-supported government.

00:14:44And what disturbs me most is that our adversaries have now turned to influence operations in

00:14:51the United States to try to discredit what the State Department does.

00:14:55Now, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, you know I don't mince words or dance around

00:15:01sensitive subjects.

00:15:02So I'm going to align myself with the chairman of this full committee, Mr. McCaul, my friend,

00:15:08who recently said that Russian propaganda has made its way into the congressional debate

00:15:12about America's support for our friends and allies in the world.

00:15:15I will align myself with Senator Mitch McConnell, who I often don't agree with, but who recently

00:15:21warned us not to take our foreign policy cues from Viktor Orban's Hungary, a country that

00:15:26he rightly said serves as China's doormat to Europe.

00:15:31I get why authoritarian governments and American think tanks that have forged partnerships

00:15:37with those governments might want us to stop these efforts.

00:15:39I get why they're smart enough to be using language from our own culture wars, language

00:15:45about wokeness, to try to turn us against what our government does to promote freedom

00:15:49and democracy around the world.

00:15:51I don't get why any of us would listen.

00:15:53It doesn't mean I agree with everything the State Department does.

00:15:57If you asked me to review the thousand or so grants that DRL manages every single year,

00:16:02I'm sure I'd find a couple things I disagree with or that I'd redirect.

00:16:06And obviously, I believe in strong congressional oversight.

00:16:10But the last thing we should do is to gut or politicize this programming or to disparage

00:16:15the hardworking, nonpartisan career public servants who implement it.

00:16:20That would be doing to ourselves what our adversaries have long tried and failed to

00:16:25do to us.

00:16:26Thank you.

00:16:27I yield back.

00:16:28Thank you, Mr. Malinowski.

00:16:29Let me just say, I do love this panel.

00:16:32This is not to diminish you at all, Mr. Richardson, but I love the fact that we have two individuals

00:16:38having held the same position at different times from different administrations.

00:16:42I think it does allow us to get a very good understanding of some of the work that's done

00:16:46there.

00:16:47So, I'm glad to see the way that this panel was formulated.

00:16:50Members are going to be recognized for five minutes of questioning, and if they want,

00:16:54we'll probably go to another round of questioning if members desire.

00:16:58I'm going to begin by recognizing myself for five minutes.

00:17:02And Mr. Malinowski, you used the term earmarks.

00:17:04I also sit on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.

00:17:07So, when I think of an earmark, I might not do the design and engineering of a bridge,

00:17:12but we're going to directly identify, hey, we need a bridge here, a road here, a piece

00:17:17of track here, or whatever it is, and we're going to directly identify that.

00:17:21And I would dare say that if we did foreign assistance in that way, I think most members

00:17:28of Congress would probably not want to put their names on a lot of the grants that are

00:17:32going out, or as you used them, called them earmarks.

00:17:35I don't think they would want to earmark them with their name on it, but how do you

00:17:38mean that term earmarks, because it's not the same way that we would talk about a transportation

00:17:45earmark.

00:17:46It's not exactly the same, but basically the way it works is Congress will say, all right,

00:17:51State Department, you've got hundreds of millions of dollars.

00:17:55We are going to direct that you spend, say, I'm making this up, $4 million on internet

00:18:03freedom programs for the people of Iran.

00:18:07You're not picking the contractor who might implement that program if it's done that way,

00:18:12but you're also not picking the contractor who's going to build your bridge, right?

00:18:16You're saying, this is the objective.

00:18:17This is what I want you to try to achieve in this place.

00:18:21And then the State Department goes out, hopefully, ideally, in consultation with those members

00:18:26of Congress who are most interested in that, and they figure out a way to do that.

00:18:31And then the oversight does not end, because if you are the person in Congress who pushed

00:18:36that earmark, you're, I assume, going to be talking to them regularly about how they're

00:18:42going about implementing it.

00:18:43So I wouldn't call that an earmark, right?

00:18:45It'd be like saying, well, Congress approved $100 million for roads across America.

00:18:50That doesn't mean we said which roads want to build.

00:18:52We just approved money for roads.

00:18:54That's not directly saying we need one here, we need one there.

00:18:56It's much more specific.

00:18:58But the members are not putting their names on the specifics of the ones that they want.

00:19:03No, you're passing it.

00:19:04It's in the law.

00:19:05We need members to put their names on the specifics of these.

00:19:08Right.

00:19:09Well, I think the difference is when I moved to Mr. Destro.

00:19:10But I thank you for your analogy.

00:19:12I appreciate it.

00:19:13It gave me some food for thought.

00:19:14It's not for your district.

00:19:15That's the difference.

00:19:16So Mr. Destro, I want to go to whether what I brought up with some of the examples, drag

00:19:24shows in Ecuador, approved, ultimately not funded because of all of the political pressure,

00:19:29but moronic to say the least.

00:19:32The atheism in Nepal, half a million dollars.

00:19:35The money going to the Taliban, you name it.

00:19:40Are these outliers or is this the tip of the iceberg?

00:19:44I agree with Congressman Malinowski.

00:19:53That the staff is hardworking, that they're dedicated public servants.

00:20:01But I can also tell you that the staff in DRL, the policy staff in DRL versus the funding

00:20:07staff in DRL was extremely frustrating.

00:20:12They could not get information about where the money was going in their countries.

00:20:19They were completely forbidden to talk to the contractors.

00:20:24When you look at a country like Lebanon, who had an earthquake in the explosion in the

00:20:29port, I called our staff together and said, well, what are we doing in Lebanon where we

00:20:34can get the contractors and get people over there to help them?

00:20:39You look at the perception of our programs.

00:20:43I have spoken to, since I left the State Department and during the time I was there, to many people

00:20:48in Nigeria.

00:20:50I've introduced them to grants.gov.

00:20:52I've introduced them to usaspending.gov.

00:20:55And the response is, this is like the dew that never makes it to the grass.

00:21:01Where is all that money going?

00:21:03How is it helping us?

00:21:05And so the perception here, I don't want to undercut the really good work that's done.

00:21:12The problem is that you have a State Department, among other things, that is paying to foster

00:21:19internet censorship, which is exactly the opposite of what we in DRL were supposed to

00:21:25be doing.

00:21:26So let me ask you, are the examples I gave the tip of the iceberg, or are they outliers?

00:21:31I think the answer is not clear.

00:21:35And I don't think, one of the things I mentioned in my written statement is that in response

00:21:43to staff concerns, I asked DRL to come up, the technical people at State, to come up

00:21:50with a real-time database of where we were spending our money.

00:21:54All of it?

00:21:55All of it.

00:21:56You know, all of it.

00:21:57So that all the other bureaus could get to it.

00:21:59It would tap into the database.

00:22:00How did it work?

00:22:01And it was built.

00:22:03And it was one of my most progressive and, I think, honorable staff members, I mean,

00:22:11I loved her opinions on things, said, you know, that that data is pretty inconvenient.

00:22:17It's going to cause an uproar in the countries if the information gets out.

00:22:22So that's not, those are not my words.

00:22:25And so the fact of the matter is, Mr. Mast, we don't know the answer to your question

00:22:30because the information is opaque and not available.

00:22:34Thank you, Mr. Destro.

00:22:35Thank you, Mr. Malinowski.

00:22:36Sorry I didn't get to a question to you, Mr. Richardson.

00:22:38Chair now recognizes Ranking Member Crow for five minutes.

00:22:42Thank you, Chairman.

00:22:43You know, it strikes me that there's two issues going on here.

00:22:48There's one discussion about whether or not we should be doing this stuff at all, right?

00:22:54Whether this money should be appropriated for these programs in the first instance.

00:22:57And that's kind of the larger debate that we're having right now as we address the Republicans'

00:23:01proposed 11 percent across-the-board cut for SFOPS, which would cut off a lot of these

00:23:06programs, versus, Mr. Destro, what I'm hearing you say about implementation and oversight

00:23:12of these programs, right, which seems to be the thrust of this conversation.

00:23:17Not necessarily that we shouldn't be doing these things, that they do have value if they're

00:23:21done the way they should be done, versus making sure they are done the right way.

00:23:27So, Mr. Malinowski, I would just love to hear your response to Mr. Destro's comments

00:23:33about implementation and oversight and your experience with that.

00:23:37Yeah, I find it very strange.

00:23:39I signed off on every grant.

00:23:41I knew exactly what we were doing around the world.

00:23:44I don't think any of my predecessors, certainly I did not have any trouble understanding what

00:23:52we were doing.

00:23:53There's trust between leadership and staff.

00:23:57Talking about transparency and putting the stuff online, do not forget, particularly

00:24:04for the bureau that we both led, most of the grants are going to help people who are living

00:24:10in dictatorships.

00:24:12Mr. Destro mentioned Lebanon.

00:24:15When you're giving a grant to an NGO in Lebanon that is fighting corruption in that country

00:24:24where the government is heavily influenced by Hezbollah, you're telling me you're going

00:24:28to put that on a website so that Hezbollah can see exactly who in Lebanon is getting

00:24:35a grant to expose their corruption?

00:24:38Are you crazy?

00:24:40So if members of his staff were telling him this is sensitive, they were absolutely right.

00:24:45We are helping people who are risking their freedom and in some cases their lives to stand

00:24:50up for democracy, freedom, and human rights in their countries.

00:24:53And you're darn right that one of the main missions of the staff in that bureau and in

00:24:58others in the State Department is to keep our partners safe.

00:25:04The assistant secretary knows what's going on if he or she is running the bureau correctly,

00:25:09but that doesn't mean, and Congress should know if you ask, but we have to keep that in mind.

00:25:16And Mr. Destro, do you think that an 11% across-the-board cut to the SFAPs program would be, in your

00:25:23view, beneficial?

00:25:24Would that enhance oversight or solve the problem that you're talking about, about implementation

00:25:29and transparency?

00:25:30Well, you've got a couple of questions there.

00:25:33I don't think that 11% cut is unreasonable.

00:25:38I mean, most Americans are taking a much bigger haircut when they go to the grocery store

00:25:43every day.

00:25:44And so the fact that it's not the amount of money that we spent, I think Jim Richardson

00:25:49and Tom Malinowski have both said, it's the effect and the outcome that we're looking

00:25:55for.

00:25:56And it's not fraud, waste, and abuse we're talking about.

00:26:01That's a category error.

00:26:03What we're talking about is programs that don't advance America's foreign policy interests

00:26:10and many programs that actually antagonize the people in the country who get it.

00:26:16And your response to that, Mr. Malinowski?

00:26:18Well, they certainly don't antagonize the people who get it.

00:26:21What I've heard a couple of times from Mr. Destro is that they may antagonize governments.

00:26:26And I'm surprised to hear a former Assistant Secretary for Democracy and Human Rights suggest

00:26:31that we shouldn't be making democracy and human rights grants that antagonize governments.

00:26:35I mean, by definition, if you are helping people, and that's the mission of this Bureau

00:26:41and of the State Department, a mission defined by the U.S. Congress.

00:26:45If you're helping people advance human rights and democratic reform, dictators aren't going

00:26:51to like that.

00:26:52I guess one thing is that I'm struggling with this notion that the resources and the amount

00:26:56of money doesn't matter.

00:26:57It's the effect.

00:26:58If you're cutting the resources and you're cutting what you're actually allocating in

00:27:02the projects themselves, then the effect goes away, right?

00:27:06Of course it matters.

00:27:07And it matters at a time, and I think there's bipartisan recognition of this.

00:27:11We've heard today that China in particular, and Russia to some extent, spend billions

00:27:16of dollars on influence operations around the world.

00:27:19And our comparative advantage in these countries is that we, unlike them, are associated by

00:27:25the peoples of these countries with these values of rule of law, human rights, democracy,

00:27:30that we work with them.

00:27:31We work with civil society.

00:27:33And we should be doing more of that, not less of that, if we're going to actually win this

00:27:37competition, if we're going to be serious about it.

00:27:39I think the point for me here is that you can't separate the conversation about allocation

00:27:45of resources and implementation, right?

00:27:47If you get rid of the resources, then implementation doesn't matter because the programs go away,

00:27:51right?

00:27:52And I'm all about increasing efficiency, having better implementation, doing things better

00:27:57all the time.

00:27:58Every organization can do things better.

00:28:00But if we cut the resources and the programs go away, then the entire conversation goes

00:28:05away and we can't even have a seat at the table.

00:28:08I yield back.

00:28:09Thank you, Mr. Krot.

00:28:10The chair now recognizes Mr. Perry for five minutes.

00:28:13Thank you, Mr. Chairman, gentlemen.

00:28:14Thanks for being here.

00:28:15Tom, it's good to see you.

00:28:16Welcome back.

00:28:17Mr. Destro, you coordinated for Tibetan issues when you were working in the last administration.

00:28:26I think Tibet suffers, as we know, from deteriorating human rights, poor economic development conditions,

00:28:33restrictions against religious freedoms and repression of Tibetan culture, as the Communist

00:28:39Party of China seeks to consume and subsume Tibet.

00:28:45With that in mind, did the Biden State Department encourage atheism in Tibet?

00:28:53Is that my understanding?

00:28:54I just want to – do you know about – what's the story there?

00:28:57It was in Nepal.

00:28:58It was in Nepal.

00:28:59It was in Nepal.

00:29:00And I can tell you –

00:29:01Okay.

00:29:02Okay.

00:29:03Go ahead.

00:29:04Go ahead.

00:29:05Tell me.

00:29:06No, no.

00:29:07Please finish your question.

00:29:08What's the interest of the United States of America in supporting atheism in Nepal?

00:29:14What – how does that help us?

00:29:16What are we trying to achieve?

00:29:17Well, there's two answers to that question.

00:29:20One, we don't have any.

00:29:22And there's no evidence that atheists are a persecuted class in Nepal.

00:29:29But even more so, you know, one of the big issues I had to deal with is talking Nepal

00:29:36into not sending people back to China.

00:29:40And I had to intervene with the foreign minister and ask him, please don't send people back

00:29:46who escape.

00:29:49And you could expect, once this came out, where the conversation would be, so why are

00:29:55you trying to destroy our culture?

00:29:57You know, so you're asking other countries to do things in the field of human rights,

00:30:03very valuable things in human rights.

00:30:07And then you're kind of hitting them in places they don't expect to get hit.

00:30:11And it's a false dichotomy that Mr. Malinowski is pointing out.

00:30:17It's not about – just about governments.

00:30:20It's about how the people see our government spending and who they're spending it on.

00:30:27The people in Nigeria I have been speaking to for years now, and they say, who are these

00:30:32people who get the money?

00:30:34What do they do with it?

00:30:36And I have suggested that their independent journalists go out and start knocking on some

00:30:41of the doors to find out where that money comes from.

00:30:44Yeah, I'm actually outraged that we're spending money, whether it's in Tibet or

00:30:50Nepal, on atheism abroad.

00:30:55I just feel like we could better spend our money, and we'll talk about that a little

00:31:00bit more.

00:31:03Mr. Richardson, it's come to my attention that grant awardees were being able to write

00:31:09their own monitoring and evaluation requirements.

00:31:14So they get the grant money – that's my understanding, so I want you to confirm this.

00:31:18Maybe I'm wrong.

00:31:19And then they write their own monitoring and evaluation, so they're watching themselves

00:31:25and how they spend it.

00:31:26Is that – am I just characterizing it?

00:31:29That's essentially right.

00:31:31When a grantee puts forward its proposal, it'll have a monitoring and evaluation

00:31:35section in that often what you find is that the monitoring and evaluation standards seem,

00:31:43I would argue, pretty weak.

00:31:45But it is almost a self-reporting.

00:31:50The latest guidance that I saw from the State Department focuses on essentially a qualitative

00:32:00and personal experience of whether that funding helped them or not.

00:32:06And rather than looking at actual data or doing a true analysis and a true monitoring

00:32:12and evaluation, which is what you would actually want to do – because what you really want

00:32:15to do is see does that money actually have the impact you're trying to accomplish rather

00:32:21than does this just make people feel good.

00:32:23And that seems to be the direction that the State Department seems to be taking in this

00:32:28new monitoring and evaluation standards that they've put forward.

00:32:30So it seems to me that we should be – when the people in the district I represent wake

00:32:37up early in the morning and head off to work to pay their taxes, can't afford their groceries,

00:32:42their electricity bill, their daycare bill, funding things – climate pet projects, DEI

00:32:53initiatives, other fabricated issues, as I would call them, as opposed to major infrastructure

00:32:58projects – oil and gas leasing or drilling, mining – real economic development projects

00:33:05that could be assessed at tangible results.

00:33:10And then evaluating whether these funds have an impact is essentially optional is astounding

00:33:16to me in the sense that last year, 2023, foreign assistance, government, state, and USAID

00:33:23combined spent $56 billion.

00:33:26For $56 billion, while China's out doing hard things, they're not doing DEI initiatives.

00:33:31I guarantee you, they are not.

00:33:35And climate issues.

00:33:36They're not doing any of that stuff.

00:33:39We're spending our taxpayers' money on this stuff and then we're not even requiring a

00:33:45third-party evaluation on effectiveness.

00:33:48It's astounding.

00:33:49It's outrageous.

00:33:51For those who say 11 percent is too much, let me tell you what will tighten up the organization

00:33:56– not having as much to spread around because they're spreading it around willy-nilly

00:34:00like they don't care because they don't care.

00:34:02Well, my people, the people that I represent that are working hard for their money, they

00:34:06do care and they don't want it wasted.

00:34:07I yield the balance.

00:34:08The chair now recognizes Mr. Burchett for five minutes.

00:34:11Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

00:34:14Votes have been called.

00:34:15Are we still good to go?

00:34:17If you would be more comfortable coming back here after the vote.

00:34:20We can hold until then.

00:34:21I can give you your five minutes then.

00:34:23Either way.

00:34:24Okay.

00:34:25There's still time.

00:34:26Progress.

00:34:27Mr. Malinowski, it's good seeing you, brother.

00:34:31I miss your receiving abilities on the football field.

00:34:37I can still play on the football team.

00:34:38Yes, you can.

00:34:39Well, with all those pros, they don't ever throw to people like me and you anyway.

00:34:44So anyway.

00:34:45I think you caught a couple.

00:34:47Well, I'm incredibly gifted.

00:34:49Thank you for noticing.

00:34:52Mr. Richardson, I appreciate all y'all being here and all the usual stuff we say.

00:34:57Can you explain how too much money in foreign aid can be a bad thing?

00:35:01Yeah.

00:35:02No, I appreciate the question.

00:35:05It is, I would say two things.

00:35:07One, you always want to look at the outcomes rather than the inputs, which is the money

00:35:13going into the system.

00:35:15Not every program is designed for the same impact.

00:35:18Not every sector will have the same level of impact that is directed to the national

00:35:24security interest of the United States.

00:35:27When it comes to the pure dollars in, what you find is that we have both grant officers

00:35:35and contracting officers who are actually doing the hard work of crafting the right

00:35:41grant agreement or the right contracting agreement or the right cooperative agreement.

00:35:48And if you have too much money into the system, you're overburdening those contracting officials.

00:35:53And so that results in less quality and less focus.

00:35:59The other part of this is that from a foreign assistance perspective, you really want to

00:36:04cut out the German manager or the British NGO that is managing your resources.

00:36:11You want to put the money as close to the recipient as possible.

00:36:14It's called localization.

00:36:16That's really hard.

00:36:17You have to find local actors.

00:36:20So it takes longer, and it's more labor intensive.

00:36:23And you probably can't put as much money into the system, but you ultimately will have a

00:36:27better impact at the end of the day.

00:36:30So having less money into the system allows you to better localize resources, better focus

00:36:37your attention on improving the actual approach that you're taking in order to have that better

00:36:44focus on impact.

00:36:46Thank you for that answer.

00:36:47I would remind you that John sitting behind me, apparently you hired him.

00:36:53I brought John to Washington, hired him in his first job.

00:36:56It's great to see you.

00:36:57He's not much to look at, but he does a pretty good job.

00:37:00He's a good Kansan.

00:37:01I've had a couple of good ones in that position.

00:37:04One of them was over there, but he's left too.

00:37:07What needs to change culturally, I think at the State Department, USAID, we hear a lot

00:37:11of talk about that and just cutting it out for foreign aid to be more effective.

00:37:16And I want to put in there, too, that how do we keep foreign aid from getting to our

00:37:22enemies?

00:37:23I've had State Department people here before, and they've told me that 100 percent, we cannot

00:37:28guarantee that some of that money is not getting to our enemies.

00:37:34The vetting question is really serious, where we actually are vetting both people and organizations

00:37:40that implement our foreign assistance, making sure that they are trusted individuals.

00:37:44We do that on a very limited basis, focused on very specific regions in the world.

00:37:50And we do it almost exclusively focused on terrorism concerns rather than transnational

00:37:55concerns, criminal enterprises.

00:37:58I think if we start expanding both what we are looking for in our vetting and expanding

00:38:03the amount of time and effort we focus on vetting, expand the number of countries, I

00:38:09think we can get a lot better and be closer to protecting the investments the American

00:38:15people are making.

00:38:16Okay.

00:38:17I'll make sure.

00:38:18Have I not gone on?

00:38:19I'm good.

00:38:20Do you have any recommendations, any of the further recommendations that we could follow

00:38:25up with, maybe in legislation or otherwise, to ensure that that would happen?

00:38:30Yeah.

00:38:31I think that we have to take this stuff, the impact assessment, very seriously.

00:38:39We have a logic model whenever we do any type of foreign assistance work that the money

00:38:45that we put into this program will result in this type of outcome.

00:38:48But we rarely actually track as to whether that actually happens.

00:38:53And often when we do track whether it happens, it's not true.

00:38:57The great example is greater economic assistance programs in Central America.

00:39:03The theory was if we put more money into economic assistance programs that will keep people

00:39:08from migrating to the North.

00:39:11Turns out we made them just a little bit less poor, which allowed them to have better ability

00:39:15to pay for somebody to go to the North.

00:39:17So it had the exact opposite.

00:39:19Great logic, terrible results.

00:39:22That's not the type of programs we should be funding.

00:39:24And I think Congress can really dig in and require that type of impact that is essential.

00:39:28We've run out of time.

00:39:29I want to thank you all.

00:39:30Tom, I miss seeing you, brother.

00:39:31But it just kind of reminds me.

00:39:32My mama was a school teacher and the last 10 years of her teaching career she taught

00:39:37at a historically black college and they had a saying, they don't want a handout, just

00:39:43a hand up.

00:39:44And I think that's something that we should take to heart because it just seems that we

00:39:48are missing the boat on this thing.

00:39:51And I think we're going to, long term, we're going to hurt ourselves because people are

00:39:55getting tired of just hearing about the misuse and the people that are abusing, specifically

00:40:00UN, things like that.

00:40:02So thank you all very much.

00:40:06So we're well into a vote series here.

00:40:08As long as you all can hold on for us, we would fully intend to come back with a few

00:40:13more questions.

00:40:14So we will briefly recess for this vote.

00:40:17We do appreciate your patience.

00:40:19And the committee will stand in recess until subject to the call of the chair.

01:05:30Committee will come to order.

01:05:53I want to thank you all for waiting patiently for us.

01:05:57We tried to hold it off until the end of that last vote and then did the following

01:06:00vote immediately.

01:06:01So hopefully you didn't feel like you had to wait too long.

01:06:04We're going to now go to my colleague from Florida, Mr. Mills for five minutes.

01:06:10Thank you so much.

01:06:11Thanks for your time.

01:06:12I appreciate you guys being here.

01:06:13I appreciate the chairman for putting this together.

01:06:16I wanted to go through a couple of just very easy questions for you.

01:06:21Defendants are putting human rights defenders' lives at risk is what we're being told.

01:06:27And I just want to talk about what a kind of hyperbolic statement that is when these

01:06:34things are made by our colleagues but also others.

01:06:36Certain offices at the state like DRL use this argument intentionally over classify

01:06:41information as a way to shield their program from congressional scrutiny and accountability.

01:06:47Can you tell me whether or not you feel that's true that we are in some way putting human

01:06:53rights lives at risk?

01:06:59I think there was a conversation about whether we should be, the State Department should

01:07:05be putting on a website or being much more public about all of the grants that go out

01:07:11to help human rights defenders and dictatorship.

01:07:15And I said if we did, in some cases if we did that, it would be putting their lives

01:07:21at risk.

01:07:22I wasn't accusing anyone of doing that now because we're not doing that now.

01:07:25But I mean Congress is more than capable of being able to understand certain classified

01:07:30sensitivities.

01:07:31Correct.

01:07:32But at the same time, in an effort to try, and this is the oversight accountability piece,

01:07:36we're supposed to show transparency and accountability for the American people and also for the taxpayers

01:07:41and how things are being done.

01:07:42My chairman here has even in the past shown where on a new department or bureau that had

01:07:50been established, it wouldn't even say who works for those independent, is that not correct?

01:07:55We tried to source this multiple times.

01:07:57How is that in some way not showing transparency, accountability or in some ways putting someone

01:08:03at risk of a classification when you don't even show who's actually part of that actual

01:08:08independent department or bureau?

01:08:11I think we may be talking, you mean a bureau of the U.S. government?

01:08:14Yes.

01:08:15I mean, I'll...

01:08:16Okay.

01:08:17Well, that's a totally different issue.

01:08:18The gentleman would yield for a moment.

01:08:19We have not discussed in this hearing.

01:08:20I yield.

01:08:21It was the climate czar, Mr. Kerry, that would not identify the individuals being paid by

01:08:26the taxpayers who are working in his office.

01:08:30And so...

01:08:31Totally different issue from grants made to human rights defenders.

01:08:35Do you think those types of things though should be held or classified or do you think

01:08:38they should be transparent to the American people?

01:08:40I think those things should be transparent to Congress.

01:08:43I would absolutely agree.

01:08:44There are situations where, again, we're talking about human rights defenders in Cuba or Lebanon

01:08:52or Iraq or China.

01:08:54We do have to be careful whether something is formally classified or not.

01:08:59I'm sure you would agree not to endanger people who share our values, who take the risk of

01:09:04being partners with the U.S. government.

01:09:06But I think you would also agree that making sure that we find out where these grant fundings

01:09:11are allocated.

01:09:12So let's just say as an example, and I'm sure that it's already been beaten a few times

01:09:15on this, but what about the money that's being allocated to UNRWA?

01:09:19What about the $343 million that went to them last year where you had members of UNRWA who

01:09:24was participating in the October 7th incident?

01:09:27Or the fact that they've said almost 10% of the 13,000 employees actually celebrated the

01:09:33attack on October 7th?

01:09:35I mean, Mr. Richardson, in your opinion, do you think that an organization who participates

01:09:41in such things should continue to receive government funding?

01:09:44No, of course not.

01:09:46I think the larger issue is also that we don't require any vetting of U.S. dollars to go

01:09:54into the U.N. system.

01:09:55So while we know what happened with UNRWA because of reporting, we don't actually do

01:10:01our own independent analysis and security checks of humans that are actually receiving

01:10:06funding.

01:10:07And so we need to change that, especially with the U.N. system.

01:10:08And this is exactly what the OIG and SOPCO talked about with SIGAR with regards to the

01:10:13independent grants and how they're being weaponized and being abused.

01:10:16You watched where companies like Commonics International and DAE and Creative Associates

01:10:23and all these supposed implementing partners who continue to say that they're doing things

01:10:27to get advocacy, we're actually just actually telling people, hey, we have to get grants

01:10:32out as fast as possible because if we don't spend the money, we're not going to be able

01:10:35to receive our second tranche.

01:10:37That is not what I consider to be physically responsible, and especially if you go back

01:10:40to the November 2011 IG report from SIGAR on the Commonics Afghan Stabilization Initiative

01:10:46program in southern Afghanistan, where money was being allocated and in some cases falling

01:10:50into the hands of Taliban and also those who are running the poppy and opium fields.

01:10:55So my point is in all this, and I know this is the point of the chairman as well, we need

01:10:59to have better oversight, accountability to make sure that this money is not falling into

01:11:03the hands of the very people that we say that we're trying to combat against, and I think

01:11:07that the only way we're going to do that is to have more transparency from departments

01:11:10like the DRL.

01:11:11With that, I yield back.

01:11:12Thank you, Mr. Mills.

01:11:13We're going to go to another round of questioning here.

01:11:16I'm going to recognize myself for five minutes, and as I start out here, maybe there's some

01:11:22agreement or some good debate between you two.

01:11:26What is the budget that we're looking at, you know, on average year over year?

01:11:30What are some of the budgets we're looking at for DRL from what you all have seen in

01:11:33terms of grants going out the door?

01:11:37Not everything coming in for salaries, but when we're talking about grants going out

01:11:40the door, what are you guys seeing, if we can agree on some kind of roundabout?

01:11:44We were looking at a, at least when I was assistant secretary, it was about $1.5 billion.

01:11:50I think it's gone up a bit.

01:11:53The operations budget was about $30,000,000, $40,000,000.

01:11:56Yeah, that's not right.

01:11:59It was, so the grant budget when I was there was a little over $100 million a year.

01:12:07During the Trump administration, Congress increased it.

01:12:12It went up about four times.

01:12:13I don't have the exact figure, obviously, but it went up to, I think, in the $400 to

01:12:18$500 million range.

01:12:19How many grants do you all think that's getting divided into?

01:12:22It's about, I think, on an annual basis, roughly about 1,000.

01:12:28DRL is, one of the cool things about the Bureau, in my view, is that they're pretty good at

01:12:35doing very small grants.

01:12:36So USAID can't do anything under mega millions.

01:12:42One of the best programs that DRL has, that has strong bipartisan support, is the ability

01:12:48to get very tiny grants of like $2,000, $3,000, $5,000 out in even less than 48 hours.

01:12:54And of the 1,000 grants, how many sub-grants do you think they're talking about?

01:12:59How many sub-grants do you all think the entity that you wrote a grant to is now writing another

01:13:05or several other grants to other entities that you did not actually give a dollar to?

01:13:10You did not vet?

01:13:14That's pretty hard.

01:13:15That's pretty hard to say.

01:13:16That was the basis for my comment about the big organizations like Humanics and others

01:13:23that understand the federal acquisition regulations.

01:13:27You can't, without doing what Jim said earlier, get down into the field and give some Nigerian

01:13:34human rights defenders a small grant for peace building.

01:13:40They just don't know how to account for the money.

01:13:42So it requires a lot more.

01:13:47A lot of that money gets sucked off in overhead, I would suggest to you.

01:13:51Elaborate on that.

01:13:52When you say sucked off in overhead, I've brought up the example numerous times.

01:13:55We almost had a whole hearing on the atheism in Nepal.

01:14:00But the numbers are round, and so we'll use it as an example, $500,000 to expand atheism

01:14:04in Nepal.

01:14:05It was denied here for several hours until we ultimately held it up.

01:14:09And then afterwards, the people that were here denying it for two hours called me afterwards

01:14:13and said, oh, crap, sorry.

01:14:15And we missed half of the slides in the program.

01:14:18By the way, here they are.

01:14:19The lawyer sent it to us.

01:14:20But when you look at that $500,000, Nepal's probably daily wage is what?

01:14:25Probably $2 a day on average, something like that there.

01:14:28So what do you think the $500,000 went to?

01:14:32I know this is a pure speculation question, but was it $50,000 towards producing 100 slides

01:14:39to give a PowerPoint, and then the other $450,000 in paying salaries for people at some NGO

01:14:46sitting in England?

01:14:48Or what is it?

01:14:51Well, it is pure speculation.

01:14:53Jim would probably know better what the overhead rate is.

01:14:56Yeah, I could talk a little bit about sort of generically rather than the specific.

01:14:59I guess I don't know the specific project.

01:15:02The challenge that we have, and you're exactly right.

01:15:05So what we end up doing is we'll give a grant to an NGO in London who will then hire some

01:15:10random German to then fly to Uganda and set up a program where there will be an office,

01:15:19there'll be an office space, there'll be this guy's family or this gal's family.

01:15:25And then they'll run a program which will have slides and office and those types of

01:15:30things.

01:15:31And that's the actual implementation of the program.

01:15:33What we often see is a 50% overhead rate.

01:15:38And there's been efforts afoot to try to limit the overhead rate, and it's different between

01:15:43contractors and grantees.

01:15:45And what that actually does is different based upon the type of program, the sector, the

01:15:50region that you're operating.

01:15:52But there's a lot of countries that do foreign assistance that really try to limit overhead

01:15:57to under 10%, which I think is the right metrics and right approach.

01:16:02And would you say what you're outlining is par for the course, whether you're talking

01:16:06about DRL or USAID or commerce or take your pick of where the dollars might be coming

01:16:12from in terms of aid going abroad?

01:16:14Every agency is different, but I do think that there's general consensus about, yeah,

01:16:18that is the way most of the, at least on the foreign assistance side of state and aid,

01:16:23there is a consistency.

01:16:25As the former congressman said, I mean, you have, DRL does sort of micro grants where

01:16:31aid sort of lives in the $1 to $5 million range.

01:16:36So there's a little bit of different in scale, which allows you to have different expectations.

01:16:41But there's also different levels of programming.

01:16:44Often you'll see five-year programs run out of aid where you may have shorter out of DRL.

01:16:49So it just depends on each one.

01:16:51The chair now recognizes Mr. Crow for five minutes.

01:16:56Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

01:16:57You know, we heard today that DRL does somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 grants, hundreds

01:17:06of millions of dollars, but the majority keeps on coming back to this supposed atheism grant

01:17:11in Nepal.

01:17:12And I just want to make the record really clear here.

01:17:14This is a grant that was done through the International Religious Freedom Grant Program

01:17:18at DRL.

01:17:21And it directly implements an amendment to the Frank Wolf Act that was introduced and

01:17:27supported by a Republican member of this committee who actually supports this program.

01:17:33The programming grant on the state side, it followed proper process and it supported a

01:17:38mission to support religious freedom broadly.

01:17:42This is about religious freedom broadly in Nepal.

01:17:45But that includes nonbelief.

01:17:47So just because one element of this is nonbelief doesn't mean that's the focus of the entire

01:17:52program.

01:17:53This is about religious freedom in Nepal broadly.

01:17:56And there was a comment that, you know, there's no evidence that atheism is under attack in

01:18:04Nepal.

01:18:05And I would like to submit into the record a report, a country update on Nepal from the

01:18:10United States Commission on International Religious Freedom from August of 2023 that

01:18:14specifically talks about the assaults on religious freedom, including nonbelief in

01:18:19Nepal, if I may submit to the record.

01:18:23So I just think it's really important that we baseline and we talk about facts here,

01:18:26right?

01:18:27Because the challenges and when we cherry pick individual instances of grants, some

01:18:34of which could be done better, right?

01:18:35We talked about this.

01:18:36There's always room for improvement.

01:18:37There's always things that can be done better.

01:18:39So we use those cherry-picked instances that then broaden out and talk about the grant

01:18:45process overall.

01:18:46That can be very, very dangerous.

01:18:48So Mr. Malinowski, I'd like to just come back to you about your experience.

01:18:53You know, what can we do better, right?

01:18:55But also what do we do well?

01:18:57Yeah.

01:18:58And just to reinforce your point, look, the religious freedom programs are wonderful.

01:19:03And that 100% came from the Republican side of the House originally as something that

01:19:07the State Department needed to do.

01:19:09When we're funding an NGO, say, in Iraq that is working with the Christian minority in

01:19:18that country, helping them, empowering them to stand up for their rights, we're not promoting

01:19:23Christianity any more than this grant was promoting any particular religion.

01:19:29It's promoting people's right to stand up for their beliefs.

01:19:33To your point, the broader point, and I think this is really important, Mr. Richardson at

01:19:39one point rightly said that it should be our goal to localize, right?

01:19:43We don't want to be giving all the money to some, you know, group in London that works

01:19:49through a contractor in Germany where most of the money is not actually going to help

01:19:53the people on the ground.

01:19:56The reason why we sometimes do that is because there's oversight.

01:20:01We don't want the money to be misspent.

01:20:03We want to know what's going on.

01:20:05You guys are pushing us for more oversight or pushing the State Department.

01:20:09And that pushes in the direction of more bureaucracy, of more people in fancy offices in Western

01:20:17countries doing more paperwork to make sure we don't have even a single example of something

01:20:25not going in the right direction.

01:20:27So there's a balance here.

01:20:29We want more of the money to go locally.

01:20:31We want some freedom to experiment, right?

01:20:33I mean, any of us who have led a team in the military, in the State Department, know it's

01:20:38best to empower, you know, to hire good people, empower them to go out, be creative, and not

01:20:43have to ask for permission for everything.

01:20:46But there's got to be some oversight because if, you know, if you don't have it, there

01:20:53will be mistakes.

01:20:54And so there has to be a balance.

01:20:56And that means, yeah, you've got to hold the State Department accountable if you see something

01:20:59you don't like.

01:21:00But understand, if they never do anything you don't like, that's probably because there's

01:21:04too much bureaucracy, too much control from the top, and we're not actually getting the

01:21:09really good program that comes from a little bit of freedom and flexibility.

01:21:13Keep that balance.

01:21:14And in the remaining time, Mr. Malinowski, what would be the impact, in your view, of

01:21:20an 11 percent across-the-board cut to the State and Foreign Ops program?

01:21:24Yeah.

01:21:25Well, it's actually not across-the-board.

01:21:26I think I looked at what the committee did.

01:21:29One of the things they did, for example, was eliminate all funding for the United Nations

01:21:33general budget.

01:21:34I know the U.N. is a whipping boy around here, but, okay, you want to end sanctions enforcement

01:21:41on North Korea and Iran and on ISIS and on al-Qaida?

01:21:47That's what would happen if we did that.

01:21:49There are a lot of things the U.N. does that don't get a lot of attention because we agree

01:21:53with them.

01:21:54We tend to only pay attention to the things we don't like.

01:21:58So massive cuts like that would absolutely undermine the U.S. national security interest,

01:22:06and I sincerely hope we don't go there.

01:22:09Thank you.

01:22:10I'm out of time.

01:22:11The programs we're talking about, we should be spending more, not less.

01:22:12Thank you.

01:22:13I'm out of time, and yield back.

01:22:14Thank you, Ranking Member Crow.

01:22:15I know this is not the time for us to continue to fully hash out Nepal as an issue.

01:22:19We argued it plenty for several hours here before, but I would say that if the paper,

01:22:24the document that the State Department literally puts forward on this grant for Nepal says

01:22:30expanding atheism, I would say expanding is promoting.

01:22:35And I would further make the point that the folks on the ground said that atheism was

01:22:40not one of the marginalized groups.

01:22:42Atheists were not one of the marginalized groups in Nepal.

01:22:45This was absolutely an instance, Mr. Malinowski, I think you used an appropriate word, experimentation.

01:22:52I don't think the American people want their dollars used for experimenting on whether

01:22:57atheism should be expanded in some country abroad.

01:23:01And I appreciate the comments on it.

01:23:02I appreciate the thought on it, but I entirely disagree regardless of where the policy came

01:23:07from.

01:23:08I believe it is now back to Mr. Mills for five minutes.

01:23:13Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman.

01:23:14Look, I want to talk about this whole grant and localization thing, but I also want to

01:23:18talk about how these grants has not seen any national security strategic success and goals.

01:23:25Let's go back to Afghanistan and Iraq.

01:23:27I spent seven years in Iraq, almost three years in Afghanistan.

01:23:31I've worked with the State Department, I've worked with the government, I've worked with

01:23:33the agencies, I've worked in uniform, and I've watched the gross abuse of programs like

01:23:38Black & Veatch's Kandahar-Hellman Power Project, the idea of being able to spend billions and

01:23:43billions of dollars that we're going to do hydro turbine electricity into Kandahar-Hellman

01:23:47and that's somehow going to work.

01:23:49Are you aware of what happened with that project, Mr. Malinowski?

01:23:52No, and again, what we've been focused on here is we do need to distinguish between

01:23:57big economic development projects.

01:23:59But this didn't start out as a big economic development program.

01:24:02Originally, they were saying that we're going to give small grants to the people that are

01:24:05there to do construction areas just to try and refurbish what was existing.

01:24:09Then that failed.

01:24:10Then it was, okay, now we need to grow this a little bit bigger.

01:24:13Okay, now that failed.

01:24:14Now we need to go ahead and bring in all new equipment.

01:24:16Now that failed.

01:24:17And it starts to get to the tunes of billions and billions of dollars.

01:24:20And you said something that USA doesn't do small grants.

01:24:22Well, I know for a fact that in Libya, you had organizations like DAI and also Creative

01:24:27Associates and also Comonix who's doing $1,000 to $5,000 grants.

01:24:31They were giving grants.

01:24:32Do you want to know what one of those was for?

01:24:34It was to buy speaker equipment for a local rapper because they thought that if he made

01:24:39music about governance, that that was going to stabilize the nation.

01:24:43Does that seem like that's what American taxpayers want to see?

01:24:47Is there money being spent to buy rap equipment for people in a nation which has nothing to

01:24:52do with stabilization, never had any actual impact whatsoever?

01:24:56These are the things that, my point in bringing up these failed programs is that we've tried

01:25:00the monitoring evaluation.

01:25:02We contract one company.

01:25:03We then contract a company like Management Systems International, MSI, who's supposed

01:25:07to be the M&E gurus and experts who then spend even more money and then they can't even track

01:25:12the money that they're spending for M&E while trying to also track the money that's being

01:25:15done to the implementing partner.

01:25:17And then we talk about this grand scheme of we're going to do localization.

01:25:20Let's talk about localization.

01:25:21The only difference is instead of the Thursday night debauchery that goes on by most of the

01:25:25expats that are over there celebrating drinking on a Thursday night like they did in Iraq,

01:25:30Afghanistan, all the rest, you then just have them refilling boots and positions here in

01:25:35D.C. and calling themselves deputy chiefs of party, chiefs of party, you know, program

01:25:40assembly manager, all this.

01:25:42You're not saving any money by trying to do this localization route and in fact, I would

01:25:46argue that we saw actually a lot more corruption in Iraq as a result of that whenever we were

01:25:50building bridges that were $750 million and then all of a sudden come to find out half

01:25:55the bridges when we investigated hadn't even been built.

01:25:59My issue is that I don't see where cash diplomacy has been successful.

01:26:05I don't see where that's stabilized nations.

01:26:08Where's Iraq right now?

01:26:10Where's Afghanistan right now?

01:26:12Where's Libya right now?

01:26:15We spent trillions of dollars in these nations and then we throw it out when we do things

01:26:20like the 2005 Iraq constitution under article 76 that establishes sectarianism which hasn't

01:26:26existed since pre-apartheid eras in North Ireland.

01:26:30My point is that we can talk about enmity and all this.

01:26:34I disagree with your assertion that, you know, the U.N. enforces all these grand sanctions.

01:26:40What about the sanctions on Iran right now?

01:26:42How's that working with regards to ensuring that they don't export more oil than they've

01:26:46ever done in their history in this administration?

01:26:49Is that, you think they're imposing sanctions?

01:26:51You think they're actually upholding things?

01:26:53No.

01:26:54General Gutierrez and Ban Ki-moon under resolution 2231 knew there was mid-range ballistic missile

01:26:59violations, and yet they did nothing to actually prevent it.

01:27:05So tell me again how cash diplomacy makes national security a priority.

01:27:11Well, we heard about Iran sanctions, people getting drunk, and projects in Afghanistan.

01:27:18There's a lot to respond to.

01:27:19Do you dispute any of those though?

01:27:21I mean, I don't even know how to make sense of what you just said, but you know, you asked

01:27:27me, let me take...

01:27:28Making sense of it is simply this, that cash diplomacy doesn't work, I'm going to ask you.

01:27:31That's what I'm saying.

01:27:33You asked about how does helping a rapper who might be spreading a message about democracy

01:27:38help us?

01:27:39You know, I recall that in the 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s, we helped defeat the Soviet Union

01:27:46in part by supporting artists and writers and cultural people and radio programmers

01:27:52and musicians and people who were spreading the culture of democracy through art in Europe.

01:27:57You talk to any dissident in Eastern Europe who went through that, they would say that's

01:28:00one of the most effective things that we did.

01:28:03Where's Libya now?

01:28:04Are they a failed state?

01:28:05What's that?

01:28:06Would you consider Libya a failed state?

01:28:07I'm talking about Eastern Europe.

01:28:09But I didn't mention Eastern Europe.

01:28:11I mentioned that specific program just to show that this is not being effective.

01:28:14And I asked how national security has improved.

01:28:17Much of the things we try to do are not going to be successful.

01:28:20When I was at DRL, I used to make an analogy, a baseball analogy to my team.

01:28:26I said that if you're batting 300 in a world where you're going up against dictators, sociopaths,

01:28:32mass murderers...

01:28:33Well, at 35.6 trillion in debt, I don't think that we can be batting a 300 for the American

01:28:37people.

01:28:38Well, it's better than batting zero.

01:28:39Well, I can tell you right now, we are batting zero.

01:28:41You know who's going to cheer?

01:28:43It's going to be the Russian government, the Chinese Communist Party would love us to stop

01:28:49doing this.

01:28:50If you think it's unsuccessful...

01:28:51But they're already expanding, sir.

01:28:52You're seeing the Russia, China, Iran, North Korea geopolitical alignment already expanding.

01:28:55If you think it's unsuccessful, why are all of our enemies passing laws?

01:28:57You've watched Belt and Road Initiative expand.

01:28:59You've watched China continuing to go into developing nations all across Africa and being

01:29:04very successful in this.

01:29:05You're watching Wegner Group down in Chad and CAR, who's continuing to expand and now

01:29:09they're in our own Western Hemisphere with economic coercion of Honduras and Panama,

01:29:14taking over the canals for treaties, going into Cuba, and actually helping with the fentanyl

01:29:17pill press of Darien Gap.

01:29:19So we're not winning the war against China and Russia by going out and doing what you're

01:29:24saying, which is these small funding grants.

01:29:26So why are they passing laws and all of their allies to try to forbid us from doing these

01:29:30grants?

01:29:32Why are we continuing to go ahead and give money but not account for where it's going?

01:29:37Why are we still giving money into the Taliban by paying certain electric bills and housing

01:29:42rental bills that we know falls into the hands of those very people we fought for 20 plus

01:29:46years?

01:29:47I mean, my point is that I don't believe in what you're doing is successful.

01:29:51I don't believe in the USAID cash diplomacy model.

01:29:54And I've seen it fail time and time again firsthand as I sat on these things like Ramp

01:29:58Up North.

01:29:59And you can continue to do your little eyebrow roll or whatever you'd like to do right now.

01:30:02But you know for a fact that if we go and look at the monitoring evaluation books, we

01:30:05look at CIGAR reports, we look at OIG off of John Sopko, that you can't dispute the

01:30:09fact that a lot of money was waste, fraud, and abuse at the taxpayer's expenses.

01:30:14Well, maybe I'll put you down as a maybe.

01:30:17Mr. Chairman.

01:30:18All right.

01:30:19I have one final round of questions.

01:30:21I don't know if my colleague has another one, but it's a little bit more open-ended for

01:30:25you all.

01:30:26And let's just simply say any advices, any ideas that you all have to increase transparency

01:30:32for these grants within the State Department across the board does not have to be DRL where

01:30:38you two spent your time.

01:30:39Could be in USAID, could be anywhere.

01:30:42Would love to hear those.

01:30:43I think it's one of the most important things that we can hear from all of you.

01:30:49The one thing that hasn't really been, you mentioned it briefly in your opening statement,

01:30:52but it's branding.

01:30:55We fail to really brand the gift from the American people that we are doing great and

01:31:00amazing work all around the world.

01:31:02We don't take credit for it.

01:31:04It's often at a little emblem in the bottom of Comonix roadway sign, thinking that Comonix

01:31:13is the one who delivered that project that impacted the lives of those people.

01:31:17No, it was the hard work of the American people paying their taxes and that resulted in that.

01:31:23And if we're not proud about it, then we shouldn't have done it.

01:31:26And so I think we should definitely pass a strong branding bill and put the American

01:31:32flag on foreign assistance projects.

01:31:35Agreed.

01:31:36Please, Mr. Destro.

01:31:37Well, thank you.

01:31:40I think that there is a danger for being too narrow in our focus, whether or not it's on

01:31:46a local program like Libya, which is a completely failed state, where we actually as a human

01:31:52rights matter have actual slave markets.

01:31:56But on the other hand, you have this focus on the atheism grant.

01:32:00What I'd like to suggest is that we need to pull the aperture back a bit and look at both

01:32:05our domestic and our foreign policy.

01:32:08We say that we're for religious freedom, but we're for deconstructing the Ukrainian Orthodox

01:32:13Church, where the Ukrainian government is arresting priests and nuns.

01:32:22It's funding the Greek Orthodox newspapers while standing silent, while the organization

01:32:32of Ukrainian Orthodox journalists, nothing said about them.

01:32:37And so what we need to be doing, and I'll just give you another example, I spent a lot

01:32:40of time on Xinjiang and on the surveillance state in China.

01:32:46I went through the Cleveland airport not long ago and was given the opportunity to have

01:32:52my face scanned.

01:32:55So this question of what are human rights, and what are we doing both inside and outside

01:33:01the country, it's not an accident that many countries think we're hypocrites.

01:33:07Because we say one thing, and then we do things with our money that we shouldn't be very proud

01:33:11of.

01:33:12Mr. Malinowski, any suggestions that you might have for transparency within grants?

01:33:21We'd love to hear them.

01:33:23So don't get me wrong, I am for transparency.

01:33:28And I was slightly critical of a proposal Mr. Destro made to put everything on a website.

01:33:35I'm actually for putting almost everything on a website.

01:33:38I think it should be easier for-

01:33:40Can we pause there one second?

01:33:41Sure.

01:33:42Was it a website or was it an internal server, an internal list?

01:33:46Right now I'd be satisfied with the internal server.

01:33:49I mean that I think you, because two ambassadors have told me that they cannot get the information-

01:33:57That you created.

01:33:58That you created.

01:33:59Was it a public domain website or was it-

01:34:02Right.

01:34:03And it's based on what they call the secretary's dashboard.

01:34:06It pulls the money, it pulls the information real time out of the F database.

01:34:11So I think, just as an American citizen, it would be- I would love there to be a website

01:34:20where you can go and see in a more clear user-friendly way what we're doing in various countries.

01:34:27If it were very clear, it would also point out in many cases that the money spent is

01:34:31not being sent to that country.

01:34:33We had that debate over Ukraine aid.

01:34:35A lot of it is spent in the United States.

01:34:37Some of it is donated as grants to organizations in that country.

01:34:43That kind of transparency I'm for, with the important caveat that applies particularly

01:34:48to DRL programs, less so to AID programs, that when you're working in a dictatorship

01:34:56and there are people who are risking their lives to do the work, anti-corruption, anti-torture,

01:35:00pro-human rights, then it's just common sense good judgment that we're not going to splash

01:35:06over all over a website, you know, Mr. Dictator, here's who you should arrest because they're

01:35:11working with the United States.

01:35:12I hope we would all agree with that.

01:35:14But beyond that, yeah, I think the more you guys can push for that, the better for everybody

01:35:21concerned.

01:35:22I'm personally proud of most of what the State Department is doing.

01:35:25I'd be happy to see it more transparently presented in that way.

01:35:30Thank you.

01:35:31Mr. Crow?

01:35:32Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

01:35:35Mr. Malinowski, I just wanted to give you the opportunity, take some time here to respond

01:35:40to some of the back and forth and the issues raised by my colleagues.

01:35:44I know you didn't fully have the opportunity to respond to that, so I'll give you my time.

01:35:49Well, thank you.

01:35:50Look, I started out where Mr. Maas started out by mentioning the Tiananmen Square anniversary

01:35:59because I think we should be focused on big stuff here, on what's important.

01:36:05And in a sense, I think we all agree there is a contest in the world right now between

01:36:09the democracies led by the United States and dictatorships led particularly by China, and

01:36:15we have to be spending money in a variety of ways all over the world if we want to win

01:36:21that contest.

01:36:24And I'm very concerned when I hear that because of some members of Congress being concerned

01:36:35about a particular grant, which is fine, that's normal, that's your job, even if we may disagree

01:36:42about the merits of that particular grant, that you have a situation where right now

01:36:49I'm told about 60 percent of the grant funding that DRL has is held by members of this committee.

01:36:57If you disagree with $20,000 that might have indirectly contributed to a canceled drag

01:37:03show in Ecuador, whatever, we can argue that.

01:37:07It should not be an argument for holding 60 percent of money that is absolutely critical

01:37:13to people who I think all of us would agree are fighting for good things like religious

01:37:18freedom and human rights in countries around the world who are in effect defending the

01:37:25gospel of liberty, freedom, and human rights that is associated with America in opposition

01:37:31to what China and Russia are spreading in the world.

01:37:35And so absolutely conduct oversight, but do it in a serious and responsible way that protects

01:37:43and enhances the important things that the State Department is doing in response to congressional

01:37:48pressure in most cases to stand up for our values and our interests.

01:37:55That would be my plea to you today.

01:37:58This has been bipartisan for as long as I have been working on these issues for over

01:38:0320 years.

01:38:05That needs to remain.

01:38:07Thank you.

01:38:08I just wanted to get your thoughts on a couple of times the issue of money provided to folks

01:38:16under assault in Afghanistan falling into the hands of the Taliban.

01:38:20We support people fighting for freedom and democracy and their rights that are under

01:38:25oppressive regimes pretty regularly.

01:38:28You had mentioned North Korea, you had mentioned Iran, you had mentioned Cuba, of course Afghanistan

01:38:34is another example.

01:38:35Can you just briefly discuss what controls and checks are in place when we do that to

01:38:42make sure that money is not misappropriated or fall into the wrong hands?

01:38:47So again, really important to distinguish between the types of things that SIGAR would

01:38:53evaluate.

01:38:54These are largely big infrastructure and development projects where you've got a lot of local business

01:38:59contractors and the funding that I'm most familiar with, which is in Afghanistan going

01:39:08to go to maybe support some journalists who are still trying to do actual journalism against

01:39:14the Taliban in the country or a small grant that might help a women's rights group have

01:39:22an office or pay for a court case or do the things that they need to do to stay alive.

01:39:28We have safeguards for all of these projects, even for the very small ones.

01:39:33There's project evaluation, reviews, external evaluation that goes into a lot of these projects.

01:39:40But for the most part, I'm not so worried about a little women's rights NGO in Afghanistan.

01:39:45That grant is not going to end up in the hands of the Taliban.

01:39:49That is 100% in our interest, it's the right thing to do, and the Taliban hopes and prays

01:39:56we stop doing it.

01:39:57So keep that in mind.

01:39:59Okay.

01:40:00Thank you.

01:40:01Chairman, I yield back.

01:40:03Mr. Mills.

01:40:07We talked about human rights, and I want to key off something.

01:40:10Do you think what's happening in our southern border with regards to the amount of human

01:40:14and child trafficking is a human rights tragedy?

01:40:18Human trafficking is a horrible human rights tragedy, yes.

01:40:21Do you think that the open borders are leading to an increase in human rights violations?

01:40:27I do not believe we have open borders on the southern border.

01:40:31You don't believe there's a 9.8 million people who's crossed our borders illegally, that

01:40:37that is an increase in what we've seen in previous administrations?

01:40:41I don't think we're going to have the time to debate our border policy here, Mr. Mills,

01:40:45but no, I do not believe.

01:40:46We will actually be able to debate whatever the chairman actually allocates the time on,

01:40:50correct?

01:40:51That's fine.

01:40:52You've sat in Congress, you know this works.

01:40:55I do.

01:40:56My point is that if we're worried about the human rights violations, and it is atrocious

01:41:03what's happening.

01:41:04We know what the cartels and what others are doing with regards to almost 40 plus percent

01:41:09of the revenue they took in, it was $500 million in cartel revenue in 2018.

01:41:15Fast forward to 2022, we're over $13 billion in cartel revenue.

01:41:20They're gaming our asylum policy.

01:41:22We're seeing where there's millions upon millions of people's crossing our borders,

01:41:27of which many are being used and thrown into child and sex trafficking and sex slavery,

01:41:32things like this, which is a pretty atrocious thing I think we could all could agree on.

01:41:36Wouldn't our money be better allocated focusing on human rights violations and things like

01:41:41that, that directly impacts our country more so than throwing money to other nations where

01:41:46we're not going to make, I mean it's a drop in the bucket, it's not going to make an impact.

01:41:51So number one, that's why I wish and still hope that you guys pass a bipartisan bill

01:41:57that is-

01:41:58You mean HR2, Secure the Border Act, which actually was passed over a year ago sitting

01:42:02in the Senate and the Democrat control?

01:42:05The bill that a bipartisan coalition in the United States Senate agreed to that was not

01:42:10passed because the nominee of your party for president said, it won't help-

01:42:14Well, but wait a second.

01:42:16Let's talk about border policy now that you brought that up though.

01:42:19Doesn't the president have executive order with unilateral authority under 212 section

01:42:23F to immediately secure the border?

01:42:26My understanding is he's going to be issuing that executive order-

01:42:28Why did he wait until right around the election period time as opposed to closing it before

01:42:3111 million people come across the border?

01:42:33I can't speak for him, but I-

01:42:34Or 7200,000 who dies from fentanyl overdose, or the criminals who have actually killed

01:42:39people like Lakin Riley, or even my own state legislator, Keon Michaels, whose son was killed

01:42:45by an illegal who crossed illegally three times back into the country.

01:42:48My guess is that he hoped Congress would do its job, and when Congress explicitly said,

01:42:53we will not do our job because Donald Trump is ordering us not to, then now the president

01:42:57is going to take-

01:42:58Wait, Mr. Mounofsky.

01:42:59Isn't there federal laws already in place to ensure the security of our borders?

01:43:04There are quite a few federal laws, but they need to be funded.

01:43:06Well, and they are funded.

01:43:09But HR2, which actually passed the House, because like you just pointed out, the Senate

01:43:12has supposedly a bipartisan bill, which is an amnesty bill, that wouldn't even pass

01:43:18its own chamber.

01:43:20But ours actually passed over a year ago, which can make tangible results and impact,

01:43:25and yet the Senate hadn't taken that up.

01:43:26Now, that's not a Republican issue or a Democratic issue, that's an American issue, that we need

01:43:32to secure our borders and we need to take care of things.

01:43:33Which is why Republicans and Democrats need to work together, as they did, to produce

01:43:36something that both sides can support with compromises on both sides.

01:43:43A lot of Democrats embraced that mostly Republican bill in the Senate, because they understood

01:43:47they had to make compromises, and the Republican sponsor of that bill, one of the most conservative

01:43:52Republicans in the United States Senate, said, the only reason we are not doing this is because

01:43:58our nominee from president said it would hurt him politically to secure the border before

01:44:03the election.

01:44:04And then he also came back and actually said that his bill, and this was said by both Democrats

01:44:09and Republicans in the Senate, that the bill wouldn't actually secure our borders.

01:44:15And that more would actually be needed.

01:44:17My point is, is that we talk about human rights, we talk about all the things that are significant

01:44:22and important, we talk about the American people is the most important, that's who we're

01:44:26fighting for.

01:44:27That's who we take the taxpayers' money to provide and protect for, and our own borders

01:44:31and the human rights violations on, I was just in South Texas for three days ago, right

01:44:36there in Mission, Texas, and going down the borders and watching, where I can tell you,

01:44:41it was not secured.

01:44:43It was not.

01:44:44A great country can secure its border and lead in the world.

01:44:48I'm looking at these paintings looking down on us right now, and the people who have sat

01:44:56in that chair, Republicans and Democrats, who have believed what every Democratic and

01:45:01Republican president of my lifetime has believed, the United States can take care of its own

01:45:06people, and we can lead in the world.

01:45:08But we can't at $35.6 trillion, where next year we will pay more in interest payments

01:45:13than we'll pay in national defense, first time in history.

01:45:15Only 28 nations in the world's history has ever paid 130% GDP, and only one survived,

01:45:20which is Japan.

01:45:22America's becoming the next physical experiment, and I don't think at $35.6 trillion, with

01:45:27our GDP to national debt ratio being where it's at, with the attack on fossil fuels,

01:45:31with the open borders, with the continuation of funding these kinetic wars that we don't

01:45:35need to be involved in.

01:45:36And, sir, I've fought enough kinetic wars to not want to be involved in more, or to

01:45:39put another man or woman on the battlefield in an area that has nothing to do for a neocon,

01:45:45neolib interventionist mindset.

01:45:46I'm not an isolationist, but I'm a protectionist, and so I think that utilizing money in the

01:45:50right way and human rights on the border matters.

01:45:54Chair now recognizes Mr. Crow for a closing statement.

01:46:00Thank you, Chairman, for calling this important hearing, and thank you to all the witnesses

01:46:03today for having a robust discussion and talking about some areas for improvement and

01:46:09oversight.

01:46:10There is no organization in the world, whether you're talking about a business, a family,

01:46:15a government agency, or a department, that can't find ways of improving.

01:46:18That's why this committee is so important, and I look forward to working with all of

01:46:21you and the chairman in finding ways that we can promote transparency, that we can maybe

01:46:26look at options for putting appropriate grants that would not jeopardize people's lives on

01:46:33internal or external portals to improve those processes.

01:46:36There's certainly ways of doing that, certainly ways of improving it, but I come back to what

01:46:42I was talking about earlier, this idea of taking specific incidents of things that didn't

01:46:47go as they were supposed to go and then using those to attack the entire system and to say

01:46:53that grants writ large are not working and effective is just a non sequitur.

01:46:59These programs are extremely valuable for our nation.

01:47:03I will push back on this idea that we don't have the ability to take care of ourselves

01:47:11at home and the world at the same time.

01:47:14If we are going to be a great power and if we are going to be a leader in the world,

01:47:19we have to do both, and we have to do both not just because it's charity and not because

01:47:23we just want to, because it's in our self-interest to do both.

01:47:28If history has ever shown or taught us anything, it's that when we pull inward and we neglect

01:47:36the world and we don't pay attention to conflict and oppression in other places, it eventually

01:47:44finds us and it comes to our door.

01:47:49Over and over again, that is the lesson of history.

01:47:52These investments are to prevent those problems from coming to our door and threatening the

01:47:58American people.

01:47:59It's in our national security interest, it's in our economic self-interest, and these are

01:48:03investments that are targeted, that have great return on investment in many cases.

01:48:09Not all of them.

01:48:10We'll always work on improving.

01:48:11We'll work on figuring out areas where we can, of course, correct when necessary.

01:48:16But to cut these programs and attack these programs writ large is the wrong answer and

01:48:22it doesn't serve our interests and it doesn't serve the interests of the American people.

01:48:26So with that, I thank all the witnesses and I yield back, Chairman.

01:48:29Thank you, Ranking Member Crowe.

01:48:31Recognize myself for a closing statement.

01:48:32I thank you all for your testimony, for your service to America.

01:48:38I don't like, personally, when it's ever flippantly said, any organization has room for improvement.

01:48:46Any organization can find a few places where dollars were wasted and they can root that

01:48:51out and we should fix that.

01:48:53There's a very specific and important difference between the United States government and any

01:49:01organization.

01:49:02The United States government gets every single dollar from we the people.

01:49:09People go out to work.

01:49:11They work all night.

01:49:12They work one job.

01:49:13They work three jobs.

01:49:15The government takes their money and then doesn't just build a road so that they can

01:49:20get to and from work or to and from school with their kids or whatever.

01:49:25They send it to countries thousands of miles away at what everybody has agreed upon, which

01:49:31is a larger extent than every other country combined.

01:49:38This is not a situation where we could say, yes, every organization has room for improvement

01:49:43and we just need to do it a little bit better.

01:49:47There is tremendous room for this to be, that's an understatement, to be done better.

01:49:55There is absolutely waste and abuse and there is absolutely policy that's being made by

01:50:04the personnel that are out there authoring grants, soliciting grants that is not connected

01:50:15to broader goals that every agency is working in tandem to achieve.

01:50:23And that doesn't work for the American people.

01:50:28We did speak briefly about the idea of earmarks and comparing earmarks to transportation earmarks

01:50:37here domestically.

01:50:38I wish, personally, if I could make the policy law that every grant that goes abroad, every

01:50:47solicitation for a grant that goes abroad, be treated like a domestic earmark where some

01:50:52member of Congress had to come in here and request that specifically, that half a million

01:50:57dollars for Nepal or that $20,000 for drag shows in Ecuador or the thousands of other

01:51:03things that exist within USAID or other places.

01:51:06I wish that members had to come in here, make the case, speak to the diplomats that

01:51:11are going to be executing those things on the ground and come in here and make the case

01:51:15to the appropriators.

01:51:16They want that earmark.

01:51:17I wish that that was the case.

01:51:18I think there would be a lot less requests for these grants and I think there would be

01:51:23a much higher level of accountability.

01:51:25I wish, and I will continue to work for policy, that these grants not be automatically reauthorized

01:51:32from not just being executed in one year, but being executed two years, three years,

01:51:37five years in a row without them being looked at again.

01:51:41I don't think that that is responsible to the American people, especially when, again,

01:51:46I believe many of these grants and these solicitations for grants are avowedly left-wing and radical

01:51:54policies that are being funded through the taxpayers, through the State Department by

01:52:00writing a grant and then that agency is writing a subgrant or a subgrant to that, which nobody

01:52:07ever gets eyes on, certainly not the U.S. taxpayer.

01:52:12That being said, thank you for the comments about where you see room for improvement,

01:52:18where you see the ability to improve this process.

01:52:20I will continue to work in some of the ways that you all brought up and some of the ways

01:52:24that I just brought up.

01:52:25And in that, pursuant to committee rules, all members will have five days to submit

01:52:32statements, questions, and extraneous materials for the record subject to the length limitations.

01:52:37And without objection, this committee stands adjourned.

01:52:40Thank you, Mr. Crow.

Brian Mast Leads House Foreign Affairs Committee Hearing On State Department Foreign Assistance

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