USAID, Oligarchy & Empire

DOGE Has Cleared a Path to Accountability.

Amid the chaos unleashed by the fusillade of executive orders from President Trump, a little-known bureau has emerged as a locus of public controversy: the Agency for International Development.

USAID might appear unlikely to rise to the top rung of concerns of Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency team. With an annual budget of approximately $40 billion, it’s not in the same league as the Department of Health and Human Services (nearing $2 trillion) or the Department of Defense (nearing $1 trillion).

On January 23, 2025, a representative of the new administration noticed that USAID had newly disbursed $153 million. Concluding it to be a violation of the president’s executive order freezing spending, he raised the issue up the DOGE chain.

What is emerging is important in itself as well as for its wider implications.

USAID operates at the confluence of development aid, diplomacy, defense, and intelligence. It undertakes major initiatives in public health and environmental issues, with domestic as well as international aspects. Amid a notable absence of congressional or public accountability, the agency has evolved into a favored tool of our current oligarchy, including corporate and financial enterprises, the tech sector, non-governmental organizations, transnational institutions, universities, and the media.¹

Consistent with our polarized, hyper-partisan politics, the USAID imbroglio is presented as a morality play. Critics of foreign aid are proclaiming vindication. Supporters of USAID are extolling the most popular humanitarian efforts.

As so often in today’s Washington, the reality is different—and the stakes are far higher.

It is emerging that USAID is enmeshed in US foreign policy, including in our proxy war against Russia in Ukraine. Under the rubric of advancing civil society to foster democracy, the agency is an ubiquitous element of American intervention—often undisclosed, working through a range of NGOs—in the domestic politics of other nations. In some cases, the agency is acting at cross-purposes to US law and policies, including border enforcement.

We are in the early innings of the DOGE efforts. It remains to be seen whether DOGE will be effectively directed and managed or rendered incoherent through wise or ill-considered intervention by the courts or Congress.

Nonetheless, recent revelations relating to USAID point toward the need for a comprehensive, transparent review of the agency and its current and historical activities.

Why USAID Matters

USAID was established by President Kennedy by executive order in 1961. From the start, it had multiple missions. In addition to development assistance, it was a vehicle of soft power in the multidimensional Cold War against the Soviet Union.

The agency’s humanitarian programs are widely admired. These include the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, credited with saving millions of lives. Food for Peace, going back to the Eisenhower administration, is respected as effective in defeating hunger while benefitting American agriculture.

Over time, USAID’s role expanded. In the 1980s the Reagan administration intensified whole-of-government efforts against the USSR. USAID worked alongside other agencies and initiatives, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, to bolster civil society in other nations.

After the Cold War concluded in the 1990s, the US continued to promote democracy across the globe. This was a factor in accelerating trade and financialization, as well as the imposition or support of regime change in the quarter century following the 9-11-2001 terror strikes.

The toxic combination of an undefined remit, multi-agency interconnection, and a lack of congressional oversight and public accountability is surely one reason the DOGE audit uncovered astonishing line items. Some approach satire, such as condoms for the Taliban, electric vehicles for Vietnam, a “DEI musical” for Ireland, and so on.

It’s notable that the White House and a relevant congressional committee released lists of such dubious uses of tax dollars as breaking news. It’s a tacit acknowledgment that each branch of government has long failed in their ongoing oversight responsibilities.

As troubling as such budget items may be, the greater scandal may be in areas the agency regards as legitimate and central to its mission.

Spreading Democracy

The immediate past administrator of USAID, Samantha Power, defends the agency as vital in the struggle of democracy versus autocracy. This is accepting the frame of reference proclaimed by the Biden administration in which she served.

The extraordinary reach of the bureaucratic status quo that Power defends is reflected in USAID’s Democracy, Human Rights and Governance Strategy, updated in 2024.² It constitutes a charter for advocacy in the name of democracy, unburdened by limiting principles.

In her recent apologia, Power claims that her former agency’s actions are transparent and accountable: “In addition to extensive oversight from Congress, USAID meticulously documented all of its programs and expenditures online.”

This is a highly selective rendering.

Senator Joni Ernst has summarized her difficulties, along with other members of Congress, in obtaining basic information from USAID. The senator and others note that the agency’s required disclosures at USAspending.gov are of limited utility, with contractors’ identities cloaked through shell organizations and cursory characterizations.

When USAID disbursements were shut down by the new administration, ostensibly independent outlets of investigation and journalism in eastern Europe, for example, were immediately affected.

Supporting such civil society efforts in other nations may be entirely justifiable. Yet they cannot be exempted from US government accountability and public debate.

In the case of Ukraine, for example, financial support for avowedly independent journalism relates directly to US participation in our proxy war with Russia.

This raises numerous questions. What are the US aims in this undeclared war? Is the news content of ostensibly independent outlets directed by US agencies or allied NGOs, governments and transnational organizations? Is news and commentary from supported outlets in Ukraine and other eastern European nations reported as reliable by US domestic outlets without additional sourcing? What is the role, if any, of US intelligence operations? What is coordinated with financial interests, such as those eyeing natural resources from a reconstructed Ukraine?

A Department of Government Accountability?

The Department of Government Efficiency points toward the need for another function: a Department of Government Accountability.

As a first step, the DOGE experience can provide information necessary to impose actionable transparency on federal agency finances. Applying uniform accounting categories across government agencies, as well as related NGOs and private enterprises, could be transformative. This could enable citizens, as well as Congress and the executive branch, to engage in informed decision making. Artificial intelligence may prove valuable in realizing this vision.

As the USAID revelations indicate, boundaries between government agencies, as well as between government and NGOs and private actors, have been stressed if not breached. This includes domestic versus foreign functions. It includes intelligence and defense and diplomatic and propaganda activities.

Some of these require limits on transparency. In law enforcement, intelligence, and national security, there may be abuses accumulating from overclassification or misclassification or misuse of information.

A useful precedent was established half a century ago. In response to a series of revelations, Senator Frank Church led the Church Committee, applying extensive oversight to US intelligence activities. In tandem with related investigations from a US House committee and a presidential commission, the Church Committee recommended a series of reforms. Many were adopted.

By 1975 it was clear that the institutions established by the National Security Act of 1947 required review and reform. In 2025 it’s time for a new round of review and reform.

Channeling the spirit of Senator Church’s historic leadership could make for a solid start. Applying twenty-first-century technologies to ensure actionable transparency could make for a strong finish.

Image Credit | Frank Church holds CIA poison dart gun at committee hearing with vice chairman John Tower on September 17, 1975. Public Domain: U.S. Capital, photo by Henry Griffin, via Levin Center.

1. It is no small irony that Elon Musk is the most conspicuous among a breakaway group of oligarchs who have migrated politically to support President Trump. This may be one reason he’s been highly effective in comprehending parts of the current system. Events will disclose whether his efforts represent a restoration of citizen accountability or a rotation amid ongoing oligarchic influence.

2. The USAID website remains dark as of this writing. The Internet Archive Wayback Machine has captured previously posted USAID information relating to the release of the updated DRG policy.