Corruption Chronicles | February 24, 2025

Highlighting the need to crack down on waste at the nation’s famously corrupt global aid agency, a group funded by leftwing billionaire George Soros is suing the Trump administration for freezing the funds of another nonprofit, also bankrolled by Soros, that receives millions of dollars from the from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). With a massive budget of around $40 billion, the agency has for years come under fire for the outrageous programs it funds with taxpayer dollars, including hundreds of millions to promote Soros’ radical globalist agenda in Latin America, a failed Clinton-backed port and power plant in Haiti, a project to help Asians learn enough English to work in offshore call centers and develop a Pakistani version of the iconic educational children’s program Sesame Street. Other USAID allocations have paid for a condom strategy in Eswatini, bicycles for rural communities in sub-Saharan Africa and racial equity. Vice President Kamala Harris’ failed multi-million-dollar venture to curb “irregular migration” was also funded through USAID.

Fortunately for American taxpayers, President Trump froze USAID disbursements on day one while his administration identifies problems, and the move has caused outrage among liberals and their allies in the mainstream media. Now two leftist entities that despise the president and promote agendas that clearly contradict his policies are suing him, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others in the administration for finally stopping the highly questionable flow of taxpayer dollars into their coffers. A lawsuit filed this month in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia accuses the president and his administration of “illegally and unconscionably” freezing funding and work related to nearly every U.S. foreign assistance mission. By freezing foreign aid, President Trump has exceeded his constitutional authority with his unlawful actions that are harming and will harm countless individuals and entities, the complaint alleges.

The lawsuit was filed by a group called Public Citizen that has received $2.46 million from Soros’ Open Society Foundations (OSF) since 2020, records uncovered by Judicial Watch reveal. The Washington D.C.-based group describes itself as a consumer advocacy organization that champions the public interest in the halls of power. “We defend democracy, resist corporate power, and fight to ensure that government works for the people – not big corporations,” according to its website. Public Citizen’s lead attorney in the case, Lauren Bateman, claims the “Trump administration’s freeze on foreign assistance funding is dangerous and illegal. She added that “when programs like the ones run by our clients are abruptly shuttered, the impacts are felt throughout the world—with the most vulnerable people bearing the deadliest impact.”

One of those plaintiffs is a Soros project called Journalism Development Network (JDN), which received $4.4 million from OSF in 2023 alone, according to records uncovered by Judicial Watch. The Maryland-based nonprofit that claims to support a global consortium of journalists has also received over $6.5 million from the State Department and USAID since 2020. JDN is the corporate name of the vehemently anti-Trump Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project and the two operate under the same Employee Identification Number (EIN) in official Internal Revenue Service (IRS) records obtained by Judicial Watch. A JDN spokesperson called the funding cut an illegal action that deprives small investigative media in low-income countries the funds they desperately need to operate. The recently filed lawsuit has another plaintiff, a New York-based nonprofit called AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC) that strives for a world without AIDS and with global health equity.

USAID has authority under federal law and the terms of foreign aid contracts to stop payments, Deputy Administrator Peter Marocco writes in a court document filed in the case. The agency took action to ensure funds are not being used for fraudulent purposes and it will continue to examine outgoing payments, Marocco writes. “Historically, USAID had limited, and insufficient payments control or review mechanisms,” the court filing reads. “Certifying officers pushed out payments—or grantees directly drew down on letters of credit or other facilities—and the system automatically processed those payments, without sufficient opportunity for payments integrity or program review. Under that legacy system, USAID employees were unable to adequately identify basic information about specific payments, such as the programs with which specific payments were associated.” After Trump’s order halting foreign aid funding USAID staff were unable to identify which payments were associated with particular enumerated accounts or programs, Marocco further reveals. “These system deficiencies and inability to provide complete information led to serious questions about waste, fraud, abuse, and even illegal payments,” the filing states. “The lack of sufficiently effective controls of an integrated payments review process has led to significant payment delays in some cases and has placed certain USAID programs at risk of catastrophic failure.”