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House Oversight Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Subcommittee chair Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) threatened Wednesday to issue criminal referrals over the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) engaging in “potentially criminal” activity.
“This committee, based on this hearing and witness testimonies, will consider recommending investigations and criminal referrals,” Greene said at the hearing on the use of foreign aid after several witnesses gave their opening statements.
Greene spoke after one witness said that USAID supported terrorists, lacked oversight, and engaged in “potentially criminal” activities.
“This committee should take action to ensure that the Department of Justice acts on it and does everything [in] Congress’s power to not just investigate but refer criminal actions to the proper authorities,” Greg Roman, the executive director of the Middle East Forum, said during his opening statement.
Greene said that USAID was taken over by partisan interests.
“The Democrat-run USAID should not get to use our federal government, our U.S. taxpayer dollars, as their party piggy bank to push their radical agenda in countries that we have no business giving money to,” Greene continued.
“Maybe we should consider investigating whether USAID funding has made it back to Democrat campaigns,” she said. “Has it affected elections?”
The Hill reported:
Greene, during the hearing, suggested President Biden used USAID to protect his son, Hunter Biden, by calling for the removal of a prosecutor general of Ukraine, Viktor Shokin, while serving in the Obama administration.
Greene repeated a frequent GOP talking point that Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion of a USAID grant if Shokin was not fired, claiming the then-vice president did so because the prosecutor was investigating Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board Hunter Biden served.
The Georgia conservative asked Max Primorac, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, “Is USAID supposed to be used as leverage by a president to protect his son?”
“No, we call that corruption,” Primorac said.
At the end of the hearing, Greene echoed her own call for criminal referrals.
“What we have heard today is that USAID has been used as a tool by Democrats to brainwash the world with globalist propaganda to force regime changes around the world,” the DOGE subcommittee chair said.
“But if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans,” Greene added, “then this committee will be making criminal referrals.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on X @SeanMoran3.
