It was a triumphant moment for the Trump administration when, letter by letter, workers removed the sign reading “U.S. Agency for International Development” from the pale limestone facade of the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, D.C. The agency’s closure, precipitated by a controversial experiment in government efficiency reforms, heralded long-overdue cuts to government excesses and abuses, including taxpayer funding of terrorist-linked extremist groups.
However, the end of USAID has also triggered unexpected collateral damage. If lawmakers fail to act, the demise of the agency could also risk the closure of USAID’s Office of the Inspector General, the only federal oversight body with the capabilities and expertise required to police a corruption-plagued foreign aid sector.
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Fortunately, Senate leaders have devised a bipartisan solution, and it won’t just save the inspector general’s office; it will streamline and improve the way the U.S. government tracks and responds to abuses in foreign assistance across federal agencies.
Sponsored by Sens. Jim Risch (R-ID) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), an amendment to the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act would redesignate USAID OIG as the “foreign assistance inspector general.” If the bill passes in both chambers, expertise accumulated over decades of fighting to stop the diversion of humanitarian aid to terrorist groups will be available to every federal government agency.
While USAID programs fall under the purview of the State Department, a new multi-agency OIG would oversee both State Department-funded aid, legacy USAID programs, and billions of dollars annually in other non-defense foreign grants and contracts.
As a government relations professional at the Middle East Forum, a policy action institute that monitors foreign assistance, I have acquired firsthand insights into USAID OIG’s operations. Over successive administrations, the inspector general’s aggressive approach to combating corruption and diversion of foreign aid to terrorist groups has produced compelling results.
USAID’s inspector general investigated the agency’s decision to fund Helping Hand for Relief and Development, a Michigan charity that the Middle East Forum exposed for harboring links to the South Asian terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which carried out the 2008 Mumbai hotel massacres. The Middle East Forum cited USAID OIG’s commitment to vetting and transparency reforms in a February 2025 study that uncovered $164 million in USAID grants to domestic nonprofit organizations tied to foreign extremist groups.
Most notably, USAID OIG launched an unprecedented investigation into more than 100 current and former officials from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, referring them for debarment sanctions for their alleged affiliation with Hamas or participation in the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks in Israel. To date, no other investigative body in the world has taken comparable action to investigate, sanction, and pursue criminal referrals against UNRWA personnel.
Every year, executive agencies that deal primarily in domestic grantmaking programs pour billions of dollars in federal assistance to overseas organizations. The inspectors general who oversee these agencies are not equipped to fight money laundering and terrorist finance abroad. They lack the deep institutional knowledge, field offices, and host-nation law enforcement relationships necessary to audit grant dollars at the point of transaction.
A Middle East Forum report published last month found that the Department of Health and Human Services sent $14 million overseas to five organizations linked to violent extremist or terrorist groups. The agency in charge of domestic health policy in America sent nearly $2 billion to foreign groups in 2024, without any of the protocols in place at USAID OIG to fight corruption and diversion of foreign aid.
In the rush to shutter USAID, some in Washington may believe the State Department could absorb USAID OIG’s duties. This would be a grave mistake.
The organizational cultures at each office are worlds apart. While USAID’s OIG was hunting down Hamas members working for UNRWA, the State Department OIG busied itself investigating America’s allies, publishing a classified report alleging “many hundreds” of potential human rights violations committed by the Israeli military in Gaza.
The State Department OIG is skilled at investigating procurement fraud and deficiencies in embassy security — not at ensuring American assistance dollars don’t enrich America’s adversaries.
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If Congress fails to act, lawmakers risk a scenario where USAID OIG could be defunded, diluted, or digested by the monstrous State Department bureaucracy.
Approving language in the annual defense authorization bill to establish a multi-agency foreign assistance OIG is imperative to ensure overseas developmental aid ends up in the hands of those who desperately need it — not those who would use it to harm the United States and its interests.
Benjamin Baird is a government relations professional and the director of MEF Action at the Middle East Forum.
