USAID whistleblower spills details of abuse
On Wednesday, a former director of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) appeared on Fox News to disclose information on what he claimed were the agency's misappropriated resources and entrenched corruption.
Mark Moyar, the former director who took office in February 2018, recounted his experience on "Jesse Watters Primetime."
He described the culture of the agency as one that was steeped in inefficiency and malpractice, starting with an unconventional orientation exercise that labeled him as a Scandinavian woman in a "privilege walk."
This was during the early days of the Trump administration.
Planned Impact
This effort, which was intended to draw attention to structural benefits and disadvantages, instead acted as an introduction to the more serious problems that USAID is facing.
“So I get there in February, and we have what’s called a privilege walk as part of the orientation where you are given an identity, and I was a Scandinavian woman. And so when they read these, they read lines like, you know, I get discriminated against because of government services or people don’t look how I look,” Moyar told Watters.
“So you took a step forward if it applied and if it didn’t. And so I ended up near the front, and the indigenous woman with, you know, unwanted pregnancy and the male prostitute were at the other end, and then we talked about our privileges.”
The Coverup
The previous head of USAID detailed how the agency refocused its efforts to superficially conform to the goals of the first Trump administration, all in the name of protecting national interests and combating terrorism.
“They’re very effective at rebranding things. So in the first Trump administration, the priorities were [to] support national interests as they are now. Another thing was countering terrorism and promoting self-reliance. So I went to a country, to give one example, they had a feminist women’s book club that had been started under the Obama administration, and then they now said this is a counter-terror program because feminist women are key fighters in the battle against terrorism,” Moyar said when asked about how the agency disguises projects.
Lack of Accountability
Also, Moyar brought up an issue that he claimed was commonplace at USAID: a lack of transparency and a tendency to avoid responsibility.
“So they ended up firing me based on this bogus accusation. And I’ve been in court for the last three years trying to get them to turn over the facts," Moyar said.
"And this is, of course, what we’ve seen with a lot of cases with Senator Ernst, for example. They refuse to turn over information to the courts or to members of Congress. And so this is why people are fed up,” he added.
Next, Moyar discussed USAID's reorganization by the Department of Government Efficiency, saying that he thinks they're doing a "good job," from what he's seen so far.
"I do think you’re going to need forensic accountants to go in there. And it’s probably going to take a long time because these bureaucrats have devised very crafty ways to hide money,” Moyar added.
The Upset
On Monday, President Donald Trump and Elon Musk disrupted USAID by closing its office and announcing the agency's imminent dissolution.
The administration instructed employees from the agency's Ronald Reagan building to telework after Musk and Trump announced on an X Spaces conversation that they had decided to close USAID.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio assumed the role of interim director by Monday afternoon. Joni Ernst, a Republican senator from Iowa, also alleges that members of USAID have obstructed and even threatened her efforts to oversee the agency's distribution of funds.