Republican senators are slamming the Biden administration for awarding cash to a terrorism-linked organization even after it began to be investigated by a government watchdog.
The Washington Examiner first reported Wednesday that the U.S. Agency for International Development gave $78,000 in October 2023 to Helping Hand for Relief and Development, which lawmakers have warned shares ties to terrorists, despite USAID’s inspector general launching an investigation into the agency for granting $110,000 in 2021 to the Michigan-based charity. Helping Hand for Relief and Development has ties to Pakistan’s Falah-e-Insaniat, an arm of the Lashkar-e-Taiba foreign terrorist group, and also Jamaat-e-Islami, an international Islamist group responsible for genocide.
“American taxpayer dollars should never be funneled into the pockets of terrorists,” Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) told the Washington Examiner. “There needs to be an immediate inquiry to find out why the administration continued to provide more taxpayer dollars to a group reportedly associating with terrorists.”
Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) called it “unbelievable” that the Biden administration “would double down on taxpayer-funded terrorism.”
“Handing over more than $100,000 in taxpayer dollars to a terrorist-linked organization while it was under investigation is fundamentally un-American,” Ernst said. “It’s past time to clean up at USAID for their taxpayer waste. Not another cent to terrorist sympathizers.”
Frustration among senators over the Biden administration backing Helping Hand for Relief and Development comes more than one year after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) asked USAID Administrator Samantha Power to suspend the 2021 grant over “credible allegations” that the nonprofit group “is associated with designated terrorist organizations.” Senior staffers close to the GOP-led panel view the 2023 grant as an opportunity for more oversight into the ever-problematic federal grants system. It’s unclear if the committee has plans to send a follow-up letter to Power, a former Obama administration diplomat whom popular conservative commentator Ben Shapiro blasted on Thursday over the Helping Hand for Relief and Development grant.
Helping Hand for Relief and Development was founded in 2005 and is “a global humanitarian relief and development organization responding to human sufferings in emergency and disaster situations around the world,” according to its website. Its ties to Jamaat-e-Islami have previously been on the radar of House Republicans since the party’s “welfare arm,” Alkhidmat Foundation Pakistan, has said that it received funding from Helping Hand for Relief and Development and also financially supported Hamas.
“We see people here in America cheering on terrorist groups like Hamas and the Houthis,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) told the Washington Examiner. “Under no circumstances should taxpayer dollars go to organizations that sympathize with terrorist groups.”
As for the Helping Hand for Relief and Development funding, “the Biden administration needs to come clean on what happened and why,” Rubio said.
In a post on social media on Thursday, Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) wrote, “The Biden administration awarded Helping Hand for Relief and Development, a terrorism-tied group, thousands of taxpayer dollars — AFTER an investigation was opened. We can never fund terrorism in the United States of America.”
A spokesperson for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said the Helping Hand for Relief and Development awards are a window into how the Biden administration has poured large sums into groups affiliated with terrorist organizations, pointing to funding to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
“Congress should act to prohibit those decisions,” the Cruz spokesperson said.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Spokeswoman Audrey Traynor for Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN) called it “unacceptable that the Biden administration continues to send taxpayer dollars to organizations with troubling ties to foreign terrorist groups.”
“Hagerty encourages USAID’s inspector general to investigate all instances where the administration fails to comply with its legal obligations,” she told the Washington Examiner.
