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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author’s opinion.
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President Donald Trump’s administration could consider criminal charges against U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) staffers following a bombshell investigation by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that uncovered severe abuses within foreign aid programs.
On Wednesday, Pete Marocco, USAID’s deputy administrator-designate, briefed members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the ongoing review of the agency’s spending and operations, conducted under Trump’s directive.
The Capitol Hill meeting sought to provide lawmakers with an update on the review of foreign aid policies implemented under Trump. During discussions, Marocco suggested that the ongoing investigation—which has been shaped by findings from Elon Musk’s DOGE initiative—could result in criminal referrals related to misconduct at USAID.
Apparently, there’s still judicial action that has even come out as late as this morning,” Rep. Keith Self, (R-TX), who attended the meeting, told DailyMail in an interview. “They intend to refer USAID officials to DOJ,” he added, highlighting that fraud “is a criminal act.”
The congressman stated that Morocco did not rule out the possibility of both USAID employees and grant recipients being implicated in criminal activities.
“If they are detecting outright fraud, not just bad programs, not just ignoble programs, not just programs that don’t support the national interest of the United States, if they’re finding fraud, then, absolutely” the perpetrators should face prosecution, Self said.
He added that criminal charges would only result from a robust “paper trail” of evidence.
“You’re going to have to have a paper trail to prove that,” Self added. “And I doubt that they would refer anyone without a very strong paper trail.”
Another person who attended the briefing confirmed the seriousness of the allegations in an interview with DailyMail.com.
“Marocco briefed the full House Foreign Affairs Committee, Democrats and Republicans, that the waste, fraud, and abuse at USAID was more severe than initially presumed,” the source told the outlet.
“He told lawmakers that multiple referrals to the Justice Department for criminal prosecution were being considered,” they continued. “The conduct in question arose because of USAID’s decentralized accountability system that often left grantees on the ground using American tax dollars in ways that were both inappropriate and potentially illegal.”