Politics
Afghanistan IG calls for more oversight to prevent fraud, avoid ‘significant mistakes’ in $133B Ukrainian aid
As the U.S. commits to support Ukraine no matter how long it takes, some in government are asking: Did America learn its lessons from Afghanistan?
Ukraine is not Afghanistan, but in terms of how the U.S. approaches aid and oversight of funds, “has that changed?” asked John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (SIGAR) which tracked billions of dollars of wasted money over the decades-long effort to rebuild that nation.
“We made some significant mistakes in dealing with Afghanistan,” he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
The one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion and Ukraine’s defense of its territory came with commitments from President Biden to contribute more than the $113 billion already appropriated for the war, and a near-unanimous chorus of lawmakers promising additional assistance in weapons and money.
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“The very worst outcome is that the assistance gets diverted, stolen in such a way that it doesn’t accomplish its intended purpose — in this case, providing the Ukrainians with the weapons and the money to win their war against the aggressor, Russia,” Sopko told Fox News.
Ukrainian personnel hold a Ukrainian flag as they stand on a Challenger 2 tank during training at Bovington Camp, near Wool in southwestern Britain, February 22, 2023. (REUTERS/Toby Melville)
The question isn’t whether money might be lost to fraud or incompetence in Ukraine but what the U.S. can do to prevent it.
“We’re spending a heck of a lot of money in that country, and any time you spend that much money in any country, you’re bound to get wastage,” Sopko said. “You’re bound to get corrupt elements of not only the Ukrainian or the host government, but also of U.S. government contractors or other third party contractors to try to steal the money. There’s just so much money going in, and it’s hard to keep track of.”
Sopko’s analysis of the situation in Afghanistan in the later stages of the U.S. involvement, before America withdrew all forces in a messy exit, paints a gruesome picture of what could happen when foreign aid is perceived as flowing to corrupt local leaders.
Without sufficient oversight, aid “gets stolen or diverted to local oligarchs or local politicians, or just the average Ukrainian will see the waste,” Sopko said. The result would be a loss of “support of the Ukrainian government by the average Ukrainian who’s fighting, dying and bleeding at the front. And that’s what we saw in Afghanistan. The Afghans saw all the money being diverted by corrupt politicians by their version of oligarchs and so when the Taliban was pushing toward the end, the average Afghan soldier or police officer or bureaucrat just said, ‘I’m not gonna die for this government… they’re stealing everything.’ And we, the donors, the U.S., were identified as supporting the corrupt oligarchs.”
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Sopko does not predict Ukraine will become a second Afghanistan — the two countries are vastly different in culture, infrastructure, civil structure and governance. Ukraine’s war is a defensive battle against a powerful foe, while Afghanistan was a civil war.
Nevertheless, corruption is not confined to one area of the globe.
U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy walk next to Saint Michael’s cathedral, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine February 20, 2023. (REUTERS/Gleb Garanich )
Ukraine’s government in 2023 is better off than the government of a decade ago, which was mired in corruption in part due to pro-Kremlin and holdover Soviet interests.
But how different it is from Afghanistan doesn’t weigh into the need for oversight, Sopko said.
“What’s similar is that we’re spending a heck of a lot of money in that country, and any time you spend that much money in any country, you’re bound to get wastage,” Sopko said. “You’re bound to get corrupt elements of not only the Ukrainian or the host government, but also of U.S. government contractors or other third party contractors to try to steal the money. There’s just so much money going in, and it’s hard to keep track of.”
In order to do oversight properly, Sopko identified several necessary conditions based on his years investigating the U.S. and other nations’ investments in Afghanistan. First, there needs to be staff on the ground who speak the language and understand the local power structures in the Ukrainian government.
Another requirement for an effective watchdog is that it should have authority to investigate every agency and every government. Current oversight efforts are “stovepiped” by the department — State Department aid is overseen by State’s IG, and doesn’t have the authority to track the Pentagon’s contributions, which falls under the Department of Defense IG.
“We issued reports up to the collapse of the Afghan government saying that the Department of Defense could not tell us what weapons we had given, and what weapons the Afghans had,” Sopko said.
The U.S. has ramped up commitments to send weapons to assist Ukraine in recent months, and several lawmakers have called on the Biden administration to detail plans for oversight.
John F. Sopko, special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, testifies before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on February 11, 2020, in Washington, DC. (Sarah Silbiger/Getty Images)
In January, the IGs at the Pentagon, State Department and USAID released a plan for the “Ukraine Oversight Interagency Working Group” to provide real-time oversight over all the equipment, funds and other aid to Ukraine. The oversight involves 17 separate oversight agencies working together — which Sopko quipped would be like “herding cats.”
The working group had dozens of reports planned for the coming year and certainly will add more. Already the IGs have identified a weakness, particularly in the Pentagon’s security aid: There aren’t enough U.S. personnel in Ukraine to track what’s happening with the U.S. weapons and equipment sent there.
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Congress also has ramped up calls for a special inspector for Ukraine aid. “We have not seen any signs that our budgetary assistance has fallen prey to any kind of corruption in Ukraine,”
Other experts argue the situation in Ukraine is different enough from Afghanistan not to warrant a special inspector. Ukraine has proved it is able to investigate and root out corruption, according to Sarah Hoffman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. She notes that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy proved he was serious about stamping out corruption by firing several officials last month and that the oversight working group quickly spun up the
“Congress and other Washington-based stakeholders should put their trust in the existing mechanisms in place and let them do their jobs,” Hoffman wrote in an opinion column for The Hill this week.
Calls from Congress to reduce or slow funding, Hoffman added, only help the Kremlin.
Ukrainian military’s Grad multiple rocket launcher fires rockets at Russian positions in the frontline near Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 24, 2022 (AP Photo/LIBKOS, File)
“We have not seen any signs that our budgetary assistance has fallen prey to any kind of corruption in Ukraine,” Defense Department spokesman John Kirby told lawmakers on Jan. 25.
Kirby’s statement came one day after reports that Zelenskyy had fired government officials who had “allegedly engaged in bribery, used government vehicles for personal use, and purchased inflated food supplies for Ukrainian forces,” Rep. James Comer, chair of the House Oversight Committee, wrote in a letter to the Biden administration demanding more transparency.
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The call for oversight should be separate from the need for aid, according Sopko, but can’t be ignored just because the goal is a noble one. Sopko looks to the example of Harry Truman, who, before running for president, made a name for himself in the Senate by investigating war profiteering in the early years of WWII — perhaps the “most righteous war” America has ever fought, Sopko said.
“We must look and protect the taxpayers’ money, no matter how good the cause,” he said.
Politics
House Republicans accuse NIH of ‘stonewalling’ on ‘supercharged monkeypox experiment’
House Republicans are pressing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for answers after the agency funded research experiments they say could result in a “supercharged” monkeypox virus.
In a letter to acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak, House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., and two subcommittee chairmen are demanding that the agency turn over documents and information regarding a government-funded experiment that reportedly involves swapping monkepox genes with a deadlier version of the virus. The lawmakers want to know whether this project was approved by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) review board tasked with oversight of research involving enhanced pathogens that could potentially cause a pandemic.
This letter is a follow-up to an October 31, 2022, letter to which Republicans say the NIH never responded. GOP lawmakers accused NIH of “stonewalling” in a press release.
“Based on the available information, it appears the project is reasonably anticipated to yield a lab-generated monkeypox virus that is 1,000 times more lethal in mice than the monkeypox virus currently circulating in humans and that transmits as efficiently as the monkeypox virus currently circulating in humans. The risk-benefit ratio indicates potentially serious risks without clear civilian practical applications,” the Republicans wrote.
This image provided by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) shows a colorized transmission electron micrograph of monkeypox particles (red) found within an infected cell (blue), cultured in the laboratory that was captured and color-enhanced at the NIAID Integrated Research Facility (IRF) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. (NIAID via AP, File)
“Accordingly, this experiment would seem to involve risks reasonably anticipated to create, transfer, or use [potential pandemic pathogens] resulting from the enhancement of a pathogen’s transmissibility or virulence in humans. Thus, under the circumstances, we are interested in learning whether this experiment was reviewed under the HHS P3CO framework used to review research proposals posing significant biosafety or biosecurity risks.”
The project leader is Dr. Bernard Moss, a veteran poxvirus researcher at the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. An article in Science magazine described his efforts to learn the differences between two variants of monkeypox virus: clade 2, the West African variant that caused a global outbreak last year, and clade 1, which is believed to be deadlier and has caused outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo for decades.
Moss’ research involves swapping the genes of the two variants, one at a time, to discover whether a specific gene in the clade 1 virus makes it deadlier. The Republicans want to know whether these lab experiments could artificially enhance the clade 2 variant.
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This 1997 image provided by the CDC during an investigation into an outbreak of monkeypox, which took place in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly Zaire, depicts the dorsal surfaces of the hands of a monkeypox case patient, who was displaying the appearance of the characteristic rash during its recuperative stage. (CDC via AP, File)
Such research, known as “gain-of-function,” is highly controversial, because it involves extracting viruses from animals to artificially engineer in a laboratory to make them more transmissible and deadly to humans. Proponents say these experiments can help scientists understand the nature of viruses and develop new treatments and vaccines. Skeptics warn that gain-of-function experiments are one lab accident away from causing another global pandemic.
Moss did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, led a letter to acting NIH Director Lawrence Tabak demanding answers on a government-funded project involving a manipulated monkeypox virus. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“Human disease associated with clade 2 or West African monkeypox virus infection is less severe and is associated with less than one percent mortality, whereas clade 1 or Congo Basin monkeypox infection has a 10 percent case fatality rate in unvaccinated persons,” the Republicans wrote. “Because of its significantly greater lethality, clade 1 or Congo Basin clade monkeypox viruses are regulated as select agents by the Federal Select Agents Program. Entities that possess, use, or transfer this agent must comply with the HHS Select Agent and Toxin Regulations unless there is an applicable exemption or exclusion.
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“Thus,” the letter continues, “under these regulations, it would appear the clade 1 monkeypox virus experiment is a restricted experiment that must be reviewed by the Federal Select Agent Program, and may be further reviewed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention‘s (CDC’s) Intragovernmental Select Agents and Toxins Technical Advisory Committee (ISATTAC).”
The Republicans want NIH officials and employees to testify about Moss’ project and other related matters. They gave NIH an April 13, 2023, deadline to respond to their inquiry.
Politics
DeSantis targets Biden in swing state Pennsylvania, says Democratic Party ‘dead’ in Florida
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis took multiple jabs at President Biden on Saturday during a stump speech in Pennsylvania.
DeSantis, speaking at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference 2023, called Biden a “floundering leader” and said the president’s poor performance contributed to Republican gains.
“We are in the highest percentage of the vote that any Republican candidate for governor has ever received in the history of the state of Florida,” DeSantis told the audience. “We were able to flip Democrat counties or urban counties like Miami-Dade County. And not only did we flip it, we won it by double digits.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. (Screenshot/)
“It’s been a massive defeat for the Democratic Party,” the Florida governor said. “They did not want to see Florida go red. They threw everything but the kitchen sink to stop us. And yet, we have left the Democratic Party for dead in the state of Florida.”
The Florida governor has been walking a political tightrope for months as he refuses to officially declare his candidacy for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination.
At the same time, he has butted heads with both the Biden administration and former President Donald Trump’s campaign — both of whom view him as a rival for the presidency.
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In speeches this year, the governor has pitched his numerous conservative policy victories in Florida as a roadmap for the entire nation.
Sources in DeSantis’ wider orbit have said that any presidential campaign launch would come in the late spring or early summer, after the end of Florida’s current legislative session.
However, the governor’s recent stops in the early-voting states of Iowa and Nevada and a trip next month to New Hampshire are sparking more 2024 speculation.
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President Biden and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis touring an area impacted by Hurricane Ian in Fort Myers Beach, Florida, in October 2022. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
DeSantis said earlier this week that his state “will not assist” in any extradition request by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg amid what he called “questionable circumstances” while slamming the charges against Trump as “un-American” and a “weaponization of the legal system to advance a political agenda.”
The former president and 2024 Republican presidential candidate was indicted by a Manhattan grand jury on Thursday after a years-long investigation by the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
Politics
Biden visits University of Pennsylvania campus for the first time since classified documents controversy
President Biden on Saturday visited the campus of the University of Pennsylvania for the first time since a controversy over the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center in Washington D.C.
Biden and first lady Jill Biden stopped by the university to visit Maisy Biden’s senior art show at a university gallery. It marks the first time Biden has visited the campus since the emergence in November of documents with classified markings at the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global Engagement in Washington, D.C.
Those documents were said to be from the Obama-Biden administration and were discovered “unexpectedly” by Biden’s personal attorneys. The emergence of the documents was followed by assessments by the FBI and Department of Justice.
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President Biden talks with reporters on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington Friday, March 31, 2023, before boarding Marine One. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
In January, the Department of Justice announced it was investigating the discovery of the documents, and Attorney General Merrick Garland said he was appointing Robert Hur as special counsel.
Attorneys also found batches of documents at Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware. Four batches of classified materials have been found in Biden’s possession in total, dating from both his time as vice president and as a senator from Delaware.
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In February, FBI agents searched Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, for three and a half hours but did not find additional classified documents. The search was carried out on Hur’s first day on the job as special counsel.
Biden has addressed the controversy, saying his team is cooperating fully with the DOJ and suggested that his staff was to blame for not finding the documents when he left office in 2017.
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President Biden delivers remarks during a meeting with Democratic congressional leaders in the Roosevelt Room of the White House Jan. 24, 2023. (Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty Images)
“But one of the things that happened is that what was not done well is as they packed up my offices to move them, they didn’t do the kind of job that should have been done to go thoroughly through every single piece of literature that’s there,” Biden said. “But I’ll just let the investigation, you know, decide what’s going on, and we’ll see what happens.”
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House Republicans have promised to investigate Biden’s handling of classified materials, with Oversight Committee Chairman Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., telling Fox News that “nothing that Joe Biden’s done with respect to mishandling these classified documents is normal.”
Fox News’ Chris Pandolfo and Brianna Herlihy contributed to this report.
House Republicans accuse NIH of ‘stonewalling’ on ‘supercharged monkeypox experiment’
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