U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and its former director, the Israel-hating former UN ambassador Samantha Power, is being accused of sending billions of dollars in aid to terrorist organizations.
According to its website (when it was still available online), USAID supplied at least $641 million of the $1.2 billion in humanitarian aid America has provided to the Palestinians since October 7, 2023.
A report in The Washington Free Beacon explains how, in some cases, USAID fought to conceal how taxpayer funds were spent. Regarding Israel, “officials recalled battling USAID over funding for groups that worked to undermine the Jewish state or maintained ties to terror organizations.”
A former State Department official who worked with USAID during the Biden administration said “elements of USAID have been problematic for years. There was even a lack of embarrassment among some USAID staffers about being associated with terrorist organizations.”
According to a recent BBC report, Power is also under suspicion of corruption during her time as head of USAID.
During an Oval Office press conference this week, Elon Musk seemed to allude to Power’s alleged net worth.
President Trump asked Musk to discuss “the woman that walked away with about 30 million.”
There have been claims on social media about Power’s net worth increasing to $30M during her time at USAID.
One post claimed: “Ex-USAID chief Samantha Power’s net worth skyrockets – from $6.7m to $30m on a $180k salary… Where did the extra $23.3m come from? And all of this in just 3 years!”
Musk responded to another post on X about Power’s work at USAID, asking “how did she accumulate wealth that is 100 times her after tax salary?”
Musk responded to Trump without mentioning Power’s name, saying: “There are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position, which is, you know what happened to USAID.
“Maybe they’re very good at investing… I think the reality is that they’re getting wealthy at the taxpayer expense.”
The suspicions and accusations against Power’s mishandling of funds through USAID are not new.
In 2023, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul sent a letter to Power expressing his concern over USAID’s “gross negligence in failing to investigate credible allegations a nonprofit receiving a $110,000 grant is associated with designated terrorist organizations more than eight months after committee staff raised the issue.”
According to the letter, USAID “took no action to investigate the grant to Helping Hand for Relief and Development (HHRD) even after being provided with detailed information on the allegations.”
Also in 2023, House Committee on Oversight and Accountability Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), Subcommittee on National Security, the Border, and Foreign Affairs Chairman Glenn Grothman (R-Wis.), and Oversight Committee Republicans raised concerns over the Biden Administration’s plans to send hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. taxpayer-funded humanitarian aid to Gaza and the West Bank.
In a letter to Power, the lawmakers stressed that taxpayer funds sent to Gaza and the West Bank could inadvertently aid Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) such as Hamas and were seeking documents and information from USAID to ensure U.S. taxpayer dollars are not financing terrorist organizations or other activities contrary to U.S. interests.
Another accusation, this time according to AzerNews, claims Power received a $1 million “reward” from Russian billionaire Ruben Vardanyan, who is currently serving a prison sentence in Baku.
The Biden administration, including former Secretary of State Antony Blinken, are accused of intentionally administering this corruption. It is likely that their involvement in the illegal activities carried out through USAID is greater than what has been revealed so far.
President Trump, together with billionaire and DOGE Director Elon Musk, has strongly criticized the Biden administration, exposing how USAID wasted vast sums of money on unnecessary and morally wrong places.
In 2021, the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly opposed Power’s nomination to lead USAID, emphasizing her long history of anti-Israel actions and controversial foreign policy positions. ZOA argued that Power consistently used human rights rhetoric to target democratic allies like Israel and the United States while supporting hostile regimes.
As U.S. Ambassador to the UN, Power played a key role in enabling the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlements and falsely labeled key Jewish historical sites as “occupied Arab land.” She promoted the resolution as part of longstanding U.S. policy, despite its widespread condemnation by Congress. Power also drew false moral equivalences between Palestinian terrorist attacks and isolated settler violence while misrepresenting the Palestinian Authority as advocating for peace, despite its ongoing financial and ideological support for terrorism. She further argued that U.S. policy is overly influenced by Israeli security interests and suggested international intervention to impose solutions on Israel, even comparing Israeli actions to the Rwandan genocide.
Beyond her anti-Israel record, Power has taken positions that raise concerns about national security and counterterrorism efforts.
While serving at the UN, she attempted to remove the U.S.-designated terrorist group Islamic Relief Agency (ISRA) from sanctions, a move that could have allowed it to receive USAID funds. ISRA has known ties to Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda, and Hamas, raising serious questions about her judgment regarding terrorist organizations.
Additionally, Power downplayed the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear ambitions, dismissing U.S. concerns about Iranian weaponization as exaggerated and calling for negotiations to “diminish perceptions of U.S. arrogance.”
Power intentionally used her control over billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars to implement policies that harmed American and Israeli security interests.
And she should pay the price for doing so.
