Commenting on the freeze of USAID spending during a recent press conference with Costa Rican President Chavez, Secretary of State Marco Rubio sounded off on the vast, fraud-like spending of the program, putting the American Deep State on notice that its monetary tendrils are being cut off.
As background, Rubio is now the USAID Acting Administration. Anouncing as much in a statement on Secretary Marco Rubio being appointed as Acting Administrator for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Department of State said, “The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has long strayed from its original mission of responsibly advancing American interests abroad, and it is now abundantly clear that significant portions of USAID funding are not aligned with the core national interests of the United States.”
The statement added, “As an interim step toward gaining control and better understanding over the agency’s activity, President Donald J. Trump appointed Secretary Marco Rubio as Acting Administrator. Secretary Rubio has also now notified Congress that a review of USAID’s foreign assistance activities is underway with an eye towards potential reorganization. As we evaluate USAID and ensure it is in alignment with an America First agenda and the efforts of the State Department, we will continue to protect the American people’s interests and ensure their tax dollars are not wasted.”
In any case, during the press conference, Shaun Tandon from the AFP asked, “Mr. Secretary, could I follow up my colleague John’s – John’s remarks, his questions about the aid? You talk about the United States being a strong partner. China, of course, is doing aid projects around the world. When you have these drastic changes, what does it do to American soft power? Is there a question about the U.S. using leverage perhaps against some of these programs that are there?”
He added, “And also, you mentioned there are, of course, legalities involved in sending prisoners overseas, if you could explain that. Obviously, there’s the Constitution. What type of human rights protections would prisoners have if they’re being sent overseas? Does that – is that a question that you raised with President Bukele?”
Rubio responded by showing the massive amount of fraud present in USAID, as so little of it even reaches its intended recipient. He began, “Well, let me just answer the first – the second question is, again, President Bukele made an offer. We communicated it to the public. He communicated it to the public. We’ll have to study it and see how something like that could even be applied.”
He continued, getting to some of the details of the fraud, “On the first question about aid, no one’s talked – this is a 90-day freeze through which it allows us now to review programs. Before we did the freeze we couldn’t find out anything about some of these programs, and USAID in particular they refused to tell us anything. We won’t tell you what the money is going to, where the money is for, who has it, which contractor it’s been – in some cases it goes through four different contractors before it reaches the intended recipient. These are not my numbers. These are USAID’s number.”
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He then said, getting to more details of the fraudulent programs, “In some cases, with USAID, 10, 12, 13 percent, maybe less of the money was actually reaching the recipient and the rest was going into the overhead and the bureaucracy. This isn’t my money. This is taxpayer money. So, we’re not going to eliminate foreign aid. We’re going to have foreign aid that makes sense. We’re going to have foreign aid that works. We’re going to have foreign aid that furthers the national interest. We’re going to have foreign aid that benefits our trusted partners and our allies.”
He then said, being positive about Costa Rica, “I am here today – we’ve issued a waiver today – because in Costa Rica we have a trusted partner and an ally who has proven that they have taken aid from the United States and used it to fix a problem, to help us, to do it in a way that actually helps the United States. They’re stopping drugs. They’re stopping criminals. They’re identifying terrorists. This is foreign aid that furthers the national interest.”
Concluding, he remained intransigent on the USAID issue, saying, “Other programs we have questions about, and – but we’ve also issued waivers because we don’t want anybody – to see anybody die or anybody be harmed in the short term. But we are going to conduct a review, and we are going to have foreign aid in this country that is going to further the national interest of the United States. If it doesn’t make us stronger or more prosperous or more secure, we aren’t going to spend taxpayer money on it. We owe that to the people of our country.”
Watch him here: