Former U.S. Army Special Forces veteran Jim Hanson appeared on Fox Business Thursday to discuss oversights in the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID’s) funding distribution that led to funneling millions of dollars to terrorist organizations.
Gregg Roman, director of the Middle East Forum, said Wednesday in a congressional testimony that the U.S. foreign aid system has misdirected millions to radical groups and terrorist-linked organizations. In an appearance on “The Evening Edit,” Hanson said that oversight failures resulted in this happening.
“The very idea of our tax dollars going to fund terrorist groups is intolerable. On the second day of the administration, the Middle East Forum sent in a report that detailed that $122 million that Greg Roman was talking about when he testified,” Hanson told Elizabeth MacDonald.
This discovery by Musk’s team, Hanson said, sparked a deeper investigation into USAID practices, with potential criminal charges on the horizon.
“Apparently that caught the attention of Elon’s Wunderkins, and they dug into it, USAID, and now we’re seeing the results. There may be criminal charges coming out of this,” Hanson said.
Macdonald then brought up Roman’s testimony alleging that just days before Hamas‘ aggressive attack on Israel on Oct. 7, USAID had allocated over $900,000 to a charity in Gaza linked to the son of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. This has raised serious questions about the integrity of the vetting processes under the current administration, and Hanson criticized the Biden administration’s decision to overturn a crucial vetting regulation from the previous administration.
“There was nothing about the Biden administration’s policy towards the war in Gaza that made the slightest bit of sense. This is hard to see as anything but malfeasance. As Gregg pointed out, they removed any ability to look to see where the money was going,” Hanson said. “And we’ve heard of other reports now where $34 million in cash went into Gaza, and USAID claimed they had eyes on it once it went in and knew where it went and apparently they did not, so there’s more to come.”
Hanson said the information gathered so far should prompt calls for a thorough investigation by the Justice Department.
“We’ve asked the Justice Department through the State Department and through the DOGE subcommittee to open an investigation and look at who has violated both the material support for terrorism Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and sanctions against designated terrorist entities statutes,” Hanson said.
“There are criminals who need to be brought to justice.”
In his testimony, Roman said that over the past two decades, World Vision received nearly $2 billion from USAID and facilitated a $125,000 grant to an entity linked to Al-Qaeda’s precursor, despite warnings. In 2023, Helping Hand for Relief and Development received $78,000 from USAID, even though they had connections to the orchestrator of the 2008 Mumbai attacks, highlighting a failure in oversight.
Featured Image Credit: Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America
