Date: 2025-08-22 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028019
TRUMP
GUTTING USAID
The Hill: White House fires USAID inspector general following critical report
GUTTING USAID
The Hill: White House fires USAID inspector general following critical report
Original article: https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5139864-white-house-fires-usaid-inspector-general-following-critical-report/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Trump, aided and abetted by Musk has launched a barrage of wrecking balls at the United States government establishment.
Someone needs to tell Trump and Musk that this is not a game played by a couple of infantile pre-teens but serious stuff that is likely ... no ... certainly will do massive damage to millions of lives and be incredible difficult to remediate and get back on track.
Anyone who has known me over the last many years will know that I am rarely happy with the status qiuo ... but that is because I want people to implement all possible improvements. During my long lifetime, there has been amazing progress in many different technical fields, and it annoys me that rather little of this technical progress has been deployed to make the lives of people better but mostly the enrich a rather small group that is already plenty rich anyway!
Frankly, I am disappointed and sigusted that much of the socio economic progress made around the world in the 1980s and 1990s has gone into reverse in the 2000s and 2010s up to the present time. The recent USAID initiative by Trump is an appalling decision ... which will results in millions dying who could have lived. Trump is ignorant and cruel ... and not fit for any major responsibility, let alone being President of the United States.
Peter Burgess
Written by Filip Timotija
02/11/25 9:25 PM ET
President Trump’s White House fired the inspector general for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on Tuesday, a day after the watchdog office issued a report critical of the foreign assistance freeze, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to The Hill.
USAID Inspector General Paul Martin was reportedly fired around 6 p.m. EST. No reason was given for his termination, the source added.
Martin’s office published a six-page report Monday outlining how the recent State Department’s pause on foreign assistance programs and cutting down the USAID’s staff created “risks and challenges to the safeguarding and distribution of USAID’s $8.2 billion in obligated but undisbursed humanitarian assistance.”
“Specifically, USAID’s existing oversight controls—albeit with previously identified shortcomings—are now largely nonoperational given these recent directives and personnel actions,” the office wrote in the report.
The law requires the administration give 30-day notice to Congress prior to terminating an inspector general and give reasons why.
Inspectors general are tasked with leading investigations and audits into the abuse, fraud and waste of a government agency they are tied to. They can serve in multiple administrations and also release recommendations and findings of their probes.
Two weeks ago, Trump fired at least 17 inspectors general, including those who worked in the State Department, Energy Department, Defense Department, Department of Veterans Affairs and others.
The majority of the USAID staff has been placed on leave. The agency’s headquarters in Washington was closed. The administration has also cut ties with scores of contractors the agency worked with.
The agency’s watchdog office said in the Monday report that “recent widespread staffing reductions across the Agency, particularly within BHA [the Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance], coupled with uncertainty about the scope of foreign assistance waivers and permissible communications with implementers, has degraded USAID’s ability to distribute and safeguard taxpayer-funded humanitarian assistance.”
The firing of Martin was reported earlier by CNN.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.
Tags DoD Donald Trump foreign assistance inspectors general firings Paul Martin state department trump Trump administration usaid USAID
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