[Want even more content from FPM? Sign up for FPM+ to unlock exclusive series, virtual town-halls with our authors, and more—now for just $3.99/month. Click here to sign up.]

The U.S. Agency for International Development (“USAID”) has operated for years as a rogue organization inside the federal government’s executive branch, sporting an annual budget of over $23 billion and managing over $40 billion in combined appropriations. Those days are finally over. President Trump has ordered a temporary freeze on most of USAID’s activities and operations and has taken other executive actions to allow a thorough analysis of where all that money is going.

Implementing an executive order issued by President Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that he has taken over as acting administrator of USAID. The State Department has assumed direct control of this atrociously run executive branch agency, which has abused its so-called “independent establishment” status by veering sharply leftward against the national interests of the United States. Secretary Rubio has provided written notice of the Trump administration’s plans for its changes to USAID’s organizational structure and programs to the Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate and House committees on foreign affairs and relevant appropriations.

Work arrangements with USAID contractors are being terminated or put on hold. Non-essential contractors are being discharged. Many of USAID’s 10,000+ direct hire employees are being placed on paid administrative leave.

USAID is a cesspool of waste, inefficiency, and abuse. Thanks to Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), stones are being turned over to expose the rot underneath. Why, for example, are American taxpayers funding $1.5 million to “advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities,” and $2 million for “LGBT activism” in Guatemala? Why are more than $1 million dollars going to Bangladesh to pay for “gender diversity,” $70,000 to pay for a DEI Musical in Ireland, and $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Columbia? None of these wasteful projects do anything to advance America’s national interest.

Some nonprofit organizations and United Nations agencies that received money from USAID have undermined America’s national security. For example, USAID funding has been used to support hundreds of thousands of migrants making their way to the U.S.-Mexican border to cross into the U.S. illegally, including from Venezuela.

Even more ominously, hundreds of thousands of dollars have been doled out by USAID for a non-profit linked to designated terrorist organizations. And USAID funneled millions of dollars to EcoHealth Alliance, which helped to fund gain-of-function virus research at the infamous Chinese Wuhan lab – the most likely source of the coronavirus that killed more than seven million people worldwide.

DOGE has uncovered these scandalous expenditures by unaccountable bureaucrats and more. But instead of wanting to be good stewards of the American people’s money, congressional Democrats are outraged that their pet progressive, left-wing projects are in jeopardy.

Democrats are exclaiming that President Trump’s directive regarding the reorganization and downsizing of USAID has created a “constitutional crisis.” Some have accused the president of staging a “coup.”

Democrat Congressman Jamie Raskin of Maryland complained that this “illegal, unconstitutional interference with congressional power is threatening lives all over the world,” adding that it is “a killer: in terms of all of the efforts to shut down global viruses.” Rep. Raskin appears to think that putting a stop to projects like funding the leaky Chinese virology lab engaging in gain-of-function virus research that was the likely source of the killer coronavirus is itself the “killer.”

In addition to targeting President Trump, the progressive Democrat resisters are demonizing Elon Musk as an unelected plutocrat presiding over a “shadow government” running amok. In their fevered imagination, unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats doling out taxpayers’ money to looney – sometimes dangerous – projects are serving the American people. But these resisters pillory the nation’s foremost business entrepreneur whom President Trump called upon to use his cost-cutting expertise in helping the president root out government fraud, waste, and inefficiency, as he promised to do during the campaign.

One far-left Democrat member of Congress, Rep. LaMonica McIver of New Jersey, who attended a “Nobody Elected Elon” rally on February 4^th, went so far as to call for shutting down Washington and declaring “We are at war.” It sure seems like Rep. McIver is calling for an insurrection.

Democrats are pointing to a new report from the Congressional Research Service, which is part of the legislative branch, to support their accusation that President Trump’s temporary freeze, downsizing, and move of USAID functions into the State Department are unconstitutional. The Congressional Research Service determined that President Trump did not have the authority to order structural changes to USAID without congressional approval. “Because Congress established U.S.A.I.D. as an independent establishment (defined in 5 U.S.C. 104) within the executive branch, the president does not have the authority to abolish it,” the report stated. “Congressional authorization would be required to abolish, move or consolidate U.S.A.I.D.”

The Congressional Research Service could not be more wrong. First, the Foreign Affairs Reform and Restructuring Act of 1998, which codified USAID as an executive branch agency, is under the “direct authority” and foreign policy guidance of the Secretary of State. All that the Trump administration is doing in moving USAID formally into the State Department is to replace a dotted line of direct authority with a solid line of direct authority.

Second (and more importantly), the Congressional Research Service failed to conduct sufficient research into Supreme Court precedent before reaching its erroneous conclusion.

In the case of Seila Law LLC v. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (591 U.S. 197 (2020)), the Supreme Court held that the structure of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau with a single director who could only be removed from office “for cause,” violated the Constitution’s separation of powers.

“The President’s executive power generally includes the power to supervise—and, if necessary, remove—those who exercise the President’s authority on his behalf,” the Supreme Court’s majority decision stated. “The Framers’ constitutional strategy is straightforward: divide power everywhere except for the Presidency, and render the President directly accountable to the people through regular elections. In that scheme, individual executive officials may wield significant authority, but that authority remains subject to the ongoing supervision and control of the elected President.” (Emphasis added)  

There is no general constitutional authority for Congress to create “independent establishments” within the executive branch that are beyond the president’s control. Congress’s attempt to tie the president’s hands by labeling USAID an “independent establishment” and insulating it from full presidential supervision and control is blatantly unconstitutional. 

In any event, USAID is sorely in need of a complete overhaul. Its wasteful and sometimes downright dangerous programs are legion, as has already been discussed above. And beyond the dubious projects themselves, USAID has flunked the tests of full transparency and internal financial controls to prevent misuse of taxpayers’ money.

USAID bureaucrats have stonewalled congressional requests for detailed information as part of Congress’s oversight responsibilities. USAID bureaucrats have also withheld information from inspector generals, including from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) who was looking into USAID’s role in the Afghanistan war. USAID stopped cooperating altogether following the Biden administration’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Paul K. Martin, the Inspector General for USAID, testified before the U.S. Senate Appropriation Committee’s Subcommittee on State, Foreign Relations, and Related Programs during an April 2024 hearing regarding USAID’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2025. In his written statement, Mr. Martin noted gaps in information provided to his office in connection with all allegations of fraud and sexual exploitation and abuse by public international organizations that receive money from USAID. His office’s audits found deficiencies in USAID’s monitoring of programs in certain countries and regions to catch instances of fraud and diversion of funds from their intended beneficiaries. Mr. Martin also reported that “OIG’s work has identified weaknesses in USAID’s internal controls that could adversely impact the Agency’s financial management capabilities.”

USAID might well have started out as a worthwhile humanitarian agency. But it has turned into a left-wing slush fund led by bureaucrats who believe they do not have to answer to anyone but themselves and their progressive bed fellows.

The Constitution provides that the executive powers are vested in the president of the United States. Part of carrying out the president’s duty to take care that the laws are faithfully executed involves close supervision of what his subordinates in the executive branch are doing and how they are managing the taxpayers’ money. President Trump won the election with a mandate from the American people to eliminate as much fraud, waste, and inefficiency as possible from the huge executive branch bureaucracy. He is fulfilling that mandate, which is what real democracy in action is all about.