How Leftist Nonprofit Networks Exploit Federal Tax Dollars to Advance a Radical Agenda

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Subcommittee will come to order. Without objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. We welcome everyone to today's hearing on how nonprofits exploit federal tax dollars to advance what we believe is a radical agenda. I now recognize the gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Moore, who will lead us in the Pledge of Allegiance, and then I ask that we remain standing for a moment of silence.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Join me in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

I'm now going to recognize myself for an opening statement. Welcome to all of you to today's hearing on the Subcommittee on Oversight. Today's hearing will expose how leftist nonprofit networks hijack and exploit your federal tax dollars to advance a radical agenda, and it will hopefully answer the most important question of the day—and I'm having a little bit of fun here—who the hell is George Soros? We're going to find out. Your tax dollars, your money, money that you earned and you worked hard for, have been funneling into left-wing nonprofits pushing extremist causes. It's not speculation, it's not just an idea, it's a pattern, and it's the truth. Under Democratic leadership, federal agencies awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in grants to supposedly, supposedly neutral nonprofit organizations, but those nonprofits just so happened to be run by their political allies, and they used your money, your money, to fund policies you never voted for and probably, in most cases, the majority of Americans strongly oppose. Is this how our democracy is supposed to work? I think we know the answer, and I think we know it's not supposed to work that way. Is this how your tax dollars should be spent? That I do know, regardless of what your opinion is: absolutely not. It is an abuse of power, one that is quietly restructuring American society in ways no one asked for, and they certainly never voted for. We've seen it again and again, over and over. The last administration disbursed $3 billion to a migrant housing group whose employees were accused of sexually abusing children. Nearly $1 million went to a group linked to riots in Los Angeles. Over $1.8 million meant for women's safety overseas was instead—instead, it was used to promote gender ideology through LGBTQ+ grants. And even if you would—here's the point. Even if you agree with the ideology, we should all agree our tax dollars shouldn't be paying for this. And then there's the biggest culprit of them all, the mastermind, the guy behind the curtain, the guy in the dark, George Soros. Who is he? What's he about? He's not just another billionaire with strong opinions. We got plenty of them. He's the architect of an international, left-wing influence machine. His Open Society Foundations sits at the center of a global web of nonprofits, grant recipients, political operatives, and shadow partners. And yes, despite his vast wealth, he also takes your tax dollars and uses them as well. Let's look at the facts. The Vera Institute of Justice, Soros-connected, received over $60 million in federal contracts, contracts from Democrats. Impact Justice, also Soros-connected, took in over $30 million to push weak-on-crime agendas instead of prosecuting criminals. These are the same groups driving the movement to decriminalize crime, defund the police, and destabilize our cities. But George Soros does not stop there. He doesn't stop at nonprofits. He's poured tens of millions into buying political influence and quietly, quietly bankrolling soft-on-crime prosecutors and attorneys general in cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago, and others. And that's why some of them have become havens for lawlessness. He's buying up radio stations, thousands of them, and media outlets across the country to control the political message and drown out any conservative voice in red states or wherever. That's not philanthropy. That's propaganda, and it's funded with your tax dollars. Beyond the efforts of George Soros, Democrats also funneled over $1 billion in DEI-related grants through the Department of Education. They sent taxpayer funds to anti-Israel groups and climate radicals determined to dismantle American energy independence. USAID used your money to fund—I love this one. I really don't, I'm being sarcastic. Everybody's ready, right? Because I really want to know what the deal is with this: a transgender comic book in Peru. Because we don't have needs in our country, right? We've got money to fund a transgender comic book in Peru and $13 million for Sesame Street in Iraq. Come on. Is that American policy? Is that what your paycheck should fund? I don't think so. Regardless of your ideology, I don't think so. Why do we need a government that—this is why. No, I won't even ask the question. I'll say we need a government that is transparent, accountable, and focused on American interests, America first. We've already saved—this administration has already saved $190 billion in taxpayer money by rooting out this waste. That's what accountability looks like. That's what real leadership delivers. Today's hearing isn't just about spreadsheets, and it's not just about budget line items. It's about who controls the country: unelected billionaires or the people who live, vote, and work here. It's about restoring accountability and ending ideological freeloading on the taxpayer's dime. It's about drawing a line in the sand and saying no more. It's about the American people are tired of being lied to. It is about the American people being tired of their money funding somebody else's political agenda. It's about the American people being tired of being ignored. Today, we're going to follow the money. We'll name the names, we lay bare how the system was rigged, and we'll make it clear: your tax dollars should serve only one purpose, the interests of the American people, not the Soros agenda, not the nonprofit cartel. It's a neat gig if you can get it. You find—you make a nonprofit, you create a nonprofit, you spend a little bit of money, but then because you got the nonprofit, all kinds of money pours in from the taxpayer. That's not how the system was supposed to work. This country does belong to the American people, and it's time Washington started acting like it. With that, I will ask the— I recognize the ranking member, Ms. Crockett.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you so much to our witnesses for being here. Unfortunately, we are witnessing today yet another political stunt, plain and simple. Republicans are here drawing a clear line in the sand. They will stop at nothing to advance Donald Trump's agenda and the dangerous blueprint laid out in Project 2025, even if it means targeting the very groups that are working to protect our communities and support our law enforcement agencies. Let's be clear, my colleagues across the aisle have shown little to no interest in working with Democrats on real solutions for the American people. Instead of addressing pressing civil rights issues constituents actually care about, like wrongful deportations of US citizens, ongoing efforts to undermine voting rights, or the serious flaws in our criminal justice system, this committee is spending its time holding a hearing with a title that sounds like it was ripped from a conspiracy blog. This hearing, How Leftist Nonprofit Networks Exploit Federal Tax Dollars to Advance a Radical Agenda. Really? I mean, when I listened to you, Mr. Chairman, who I do respect, I heard you say things about why is it that we're giving money in other places? And I want to make sure that I answer that question, because to put America first looks like we are going to keep American citizens safe. There is a such thing as soft power, and that is exactly what we were trying to do when we engage in things such as USAID. When you start to talk about whether or not Sesame Street or anything else that's on NPR or PBS ends up in other places, this is so that there is not this warped thought process about the Western world or about the United States. We're talking about making sure that we don't end up allowing people to be radicalized against us because they have a terrible vision of us, because they may be in a government that actually puts out bad, terrible propaganda about us. So for pennies on the dollar, we are able to educate those around the world on who we really are in America and keep Americans safe. Soft power is real power, and it minimizes how much money we have to spend, say, on dropping bombs in countries at a random time without, say, congressional authority. But I digress. This kind of rhetoric, whether directed at nonprofits, their leaders, or elected officials, is not only reckless, it is beneath the dignity of this institution. And sadly, this isn't the first time this has happened. Over the past six months, we've seen hearing after hearing do nothing but attack nonprofits as well as those who are just generally on a mission to serve, protect, and uplift vulnerable communities. In just my own committees, this has got to be the second or third time I've had to sit through the same tired narrative. If my Republican colleagues are truly concerned about taxpayer dollars being misused for political agendas, I'd encourage them to take a long, hard look in the mirror. But since we're here again, spending more of the American people's money and time on political theater, let's at least stick to the facts. Fact: Under the Trump administration, the Department of Justice stripped hundreds of millions of dollars from the Office of Justice Programs, money that funded essential community safety initiatives like victim services, gang prevention, and reentry support. Fact: Trump and Republicans slashed grants to organizations like the National Organization for Victim Assistance, which trains advocates who staff domestic violence shelters, hotlines, and rape crisis centers. Fact: They cut over $10 million in funding to the National Policing Institute, a nonprofit helping rural police departments reduce violent crime. Fact: This week, Republicans are trying to gut PEPFAR, a lifesaving program that partners with nonprofits around the world and has saved more than 26 million lives. And let's not forget, many of these cuts were laid out in Project 2025, a radical far-right playbook drafted by hyper-conservative nonprofits for the express purpose of dismantling the very government institutions and systems that serve the public good. Ironically, we even have one of the authors of Project 2025 here with us today. So let's not pretend this is about nonprofit accountability, because if it were, this committee would also be investigating the Conservative Partnership Institute, which has pushed anti-immigrant, anti-LGBTQ+, and anti-vaccine propaganda, and hosted efforts to challenge the 2020 election. Mind you, as we have these organizations that are pushing anti-vaccine propaganda, we know that measles has reached a 30-year high when measles had actually been over and done with, but now that we don't believe in vaccines, now children are our targets, unfortunately, and yes, they are dying. The New Century Foundation, a white nationalist organization that somehow maintains its 501(c)(3) status to launder hate speech through the language of intellectual inquiry. Or they would investigate Turning Point USA, which has been linked to organizers of the January 6th insurrection. But Republicans aren't talking about those groups because this isn't about accountability. It's about silencing organizations that challenge Republican power. It's about targeting nonprofits that protect the very people this Trump-aligned movement continues to harm. These organizations are defending victims of unlawful actions. They're helping to combat global pandemics. They're supporting police departments when this very committee won't. They're working to build safer, healthier communities while Trump and his allies defund them to hand out tax breaks to billionaires. And maybe that's the real threat here. They're effective. They get people off the streets, out of prison, and into opportunity. They educate people about injustice, and that apparently scares some folks more than any so-called radical agenda. Because the only thing truly radical about these nonprofits is their belief that human beings deserve dignity, opportunity, and equal protection under the law, values my Republican colleagues seem to have forgotten along with love thy neighbor. So instead of demonizing the groups trying to do right by our communities, maybe we should be asking how to support them, how to ensure taxpayer dollars reach the people who need them most, because this hearing should be about public safety, not political vendettas. Until that happens, these hearings are doing more harm than good. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Ranking Member. I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Chairman Jordan.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In simple terms, they used your money against you, took your tax money, spent it on stupid things, things you don't approve of. This is what the Biden-Harris administration did: millions of taxpayer dollars on their progressive pet projects. As the chairman highlighted, $1 billion in DEI grants from the Education Department, $2 million in grants for gender ideology from the Justice Department, millions of dollars for progressive criminal justice reforms, radical open border activities, billions and billions of dollars for that. And I think, as the chairman mentioned, our favorite, of course, is Sesame Street in Iraq: Bert and Ernie, Big Bird in Baghdad. Wow, what a great use of taxpayer dollars. That's what this hearing's about: talking about all the stupid things they spent your money on. Now, the good news is American people said, We're going to put President Trump in the White House, and he put this group together called DOGE. They've identified all kinds of crazy things. And later this week, hopefully, maybe even today, the Senate's going to vote on the first package to rescind some of the stupid things they took your money and spent it on. So I want to thank the chairman for his hard work on this subcommittee, all the good hearings he's had, and for this hearing, and thank our witnesses for being here. And with that, I yield back.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Chairman. I now recognize the ranking member of the full— I'm sorry, the ranking member of the committee, Mr. Raskin.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

Thank you very much, Chairman VanDrew Drew. Pointing fingers is for losers. I'm quoting our colleague, Representative Chip Roy, from last week, and this has become a mantra for our colleagues in the wake of the devastating flooding in Texas, which cost already 132 lives with still 160 people missing. It's now an article of faith among our colleagues that in the age of climate change disasters, like Hurricane Helene, which cost 200 lives in North Carolina, or deadly tornadoes in the Midwest, you name it, in the age of out-of-control gun violence, whether in Uvalde or Buffalo or Charleston or Parkland, we should never engage in finger-pointing or casting blame or attributing responsibility to individuals, although, of course, Donald Trump finger-points and casts blame at Democratic leaders, as he did recently with Governor Newsom with the wildfires in California. But in any event, the point is we don't really want to know which individuals are responsible. We should be addressing the underlying systemic problems, like climate change, effective emergency response and planning, or mass gun violence and reducing access to military-style assault weapons, rather than vilifying people and casting blame on a partisan basis. Fine. Let's adopt that rule: finger-pointing is for losers. For this committee: no to finger-pointing, yes to problem-solving. But this entire hearing is nothing but absurd political finger-pointing, and it's not even finger-pointing at people who actually run our government or occupy public office. It's finger-pointing at not-for-profit groups, like Church World Service, or HIAS, Lutheran Community Services, and the reviled philanthropist George Soros, who has given away hundreds of millions of dollars to make the world a better place. I don't like everything that every right-wing not-for-profit group does in America or around the world, but I don't think it merits a full-blown congressional hearing. We didn't even have a hearing on the richest billionaire in the world, Elon Musk, who actually had a government job, running DOGE, destroying large parts of our government, firing tens of thousands of our federal workers. The Republicans didn't even call in Elon Musk for a hearing or have a hearing about what he was doing, but they want to have a hearing in 2025 about George Soros, all of the old, tired, exhausted, absurd conspiracy theories again. And I don't see any—and these witnesses can correct me if I'm wrong. I perused all their statements. I didn't see a single one of them allege a single crime, anything illegal going on. They just don't like the things that he invests in. They don't like what certain not-for-profit groups do. Well, I don't love everything that the right-wing not-for-profits do. Why are we having a hearing about this? What an absurd waste of time. This hearing, if our if our motto is going to be finger-pointing is for losers, this hearing is for losers because all it is is finger-pointing at somebody who doesn't even have political power. This is an oversight hearing before the Oversight Subcommittee that's not doing any oversight on the government. Indeed, the Judiciary Committee has not yet conducted a single oversight meeting this Congress with a single government witness. Not one. They've not called Attorney General Bondi. They've not called FBI Director Patel. They haven't even called anybody to talk about George Soros from the government. They won't subject any of their government officials to any cross-examination by this panel. Now, I think this is an absurd waste of our time. Why are we not addressing urgent policy problems like the pervasive nationwide violation of due process and First Amendment rights by ICE and other federal agents who arrive now in unmarked cars, in plainclothes, without badges or arrest warrants, and then snatch people off the streets and send them to a torturer's prison in El Salvador? Do you think the United States House of Representatives Judiciary Committee should have an interest in defending due process? Some of my colleagues say, You're not for due process for guilty people, are you? Well, yeah, because we don't know if they're guilty until they've gotten due process. That's why due process are the two most beautiful words in the English language, so it separates our rights and our freedoms from arbitrary state power. Why are we not addressing the threats to the security and safety of judges who are working to uphold the rule of law and now are subject not just to slander and defamation and signs all over Congress saying, Impeach this judge or that judge, for standing up for the Constitution, now violent threats not just to them, but to their family members? Why are we not addressing the mass firing of dozens of experienced, crime-fighting federal prosecutors at the Department of Justice who've been fired en masse for the sole reason that they did their job and prosecuted police beaters, violent insurrectionists, and other rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, in order to overthrow a presidential election in the United States of America and attack our Constitution? Why are we not having a hearing about that? We could actually have a hearing. Here's something we could agree on, Mr. Chairman, on a bipartisan basis. Why don't we have a hearing on what the whole country is talking about right now, if you turn on TV and go on the internet? Why don't we have a hearing about the continuing suppression and cover-up of the information in the Epstein files about a child sex ring run by powerful people? The whole country, not just Republicans and MAGA, but liberal Democrats, are in an uproar because President Trump, Attorney General Bondi, and their allies in the DOJ and FBI repeatedly claimed in public that the Epstein files have the names of power elite actors involved in human trafficking and sexual abuse of minor of minors with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and they promised to release all the information in the name of maximal transparency. Remember that? They said this would be the most transparent administration in the history of the United States. But now they're shouting, Nothing to see here, sweeping it all under the rug, steadfastly refusing to release the files despite broad bipartisan demand to release the Epstein files after everything they've said publicly. The Democratic members of this committee sent a letter today at 2:00 p.m. demanding that the president keep his word and release the files to the American people and that Chairman Jordan call a bipartisan hearing where we can work together to get to the bottom of this. How about a hearing on that? Do any of my colleagues want to talk about that, or does everybody want to talk about George Soros? I'm curious to know which of my colleagues support our call for a bipartisan hearing on the Epstein files. So, here we are at this utterly pointless hearing, spinning absurd, discredited conspiracy theories again about George Soros, and, again, I don't see a single claim of any criminality or illegality taking place. They don't like the guy's politics. I can find you 50 right-wing billionaires whose politics I don't like. So what? What an utter, absurd waste of time this is. And it's an attempt to change the subject, obviously, from what America wants to talk about now, which is why, after promising for all of these years to release the Epstein files, will President Trump not release them? And we know they were friends, and we know they hung out, and we know there are all these pictures together. We know that Michael Wolff, Trump's biographer, said he saw photographs of Donald Trump and Epstein with minor-aged girls. Well, where where does that leave us? That doesn't look good if they then cover up all the information. Come clean and release the information, as the Republicans have repeatedly promised to do. So, I look forward to hearing if there's any allegations of criminality or illegality, they should be turned over immediately to the Department of Justice today. Otherwise, this hearing, I'm afraid, Mr. Chairman, is for losers. It's about finger-pointing at people who don't have any governmental power at all. It's old, recycled allegations, and we're not advancing the ball on anything. At the very least, the Judiciary Committee should be demanding that the Epstein files be made public. That is a bipartisan agenda. At least I thought it was. And if something has changed, please let me know. But I thought that we were all for that together, and we should move on that today. Thank you, and I yield back.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Mr. Ranking Member, I thank you for your testimony and fundamentally disagree with you on everything. Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. And we're now going to introduce today's—

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

and please elaborate, if you would, Mr. Chairman. I'm happy to hear it.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

I don't want to hold up the whole hearing, so it would take a considerable amount of time. It really would. And I want to give these fine gentlemen a chance from both sides of the aisle to place their testimony into the record. But we certainly could do that, and we may as we move along. Now, today's witnesses, thank you for being here, all of you. Mr. Tyler O'Neil. Mr. O'Neil is a senior editor at The Daily Signal, a news and commentary outlet. He previously served as managing editor of The Daily Signal from 2022 to 2025 before transitioning to his current role in order to spend more time writing. Mr. O'Neil articles focus on nonprofits, among other topics. Mr. Scott Walter. Excuse me. Mr. Walter is the president of Capital Research Center, a nonprofit watchdog organization. He previously served as special assistant to President George W. Bush and as vice president of the Philanthropy Roundtable. Mr. Gonzalez. Mr. Mike Gonzalez. Mr. Gonzalez is the— I want to say this right. Ángeles T. Arredondo—say it for me. You said it so much better. Thank you. E Pluribus Unum, that I can say. Senior Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, where his research focuses on identity politics, multiculturalism, and foreign policy. He previously worked as a journalist and served in the Securities and Exchange Commission and the State Department. And finally, Ambassador Luis C.deBaca. Mr. deBaca is a professor from practice at the University of Michigan Law School. He previously served as an ambassador-at-large to monitor and combat trafficking in persons during the Obama administration, where he worked to advance efforts to combat contemporary forms of slavery. We will begin by swearing you all in. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm that under penalty of perjury that the testimony you are about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief, so help you God? Thank you. Please be seated. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask you summarize your testimony in 5 minutes. Mr. O'Neil, you may begin.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, thank you for the opportunity to testify before you today. Did you know that millions of your tax dollars go to fund leftist activist groups who then lobby the government for policies you may disagree with? The funding comes in at least three ways: directly through contracts and grants, indirectly through unions taking federal employees' dues and sending a portion of it to activist groups, and then obliquely through taxpayer-funded union time. Examples of direct funding are legion. USAID awarded more than $800 grand to New Venture Fund, a dark money pass-through nonprofit that cloaks which donors give to which nonprofits, and $27 million to the Tides Center, another dark money nonprofit that supports anti-Israel rioters, among other issues. An arm of the Open Society Foundations, the funding organ set up by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros and now run by his son Alex, received so much money from USAID that it found it worthwhile to sue the agency to bypass guardrails on funding. The resulting legal battle reached the Supreme Court not once, but twice. The Justice Department, the key purview of this committee, funded at least one major Soros-backed NGO. George Soros supports rogue prosecutors who lower the penalties for crime. Not surprisingly, many of the cities with the highest murder rates have prosecutors backed by Soros. The Vera Institute of Justice, which says the criminal justice system is rooted in a history of white supremacy, received more than $11 million from the Foundation to Promote Open Society. The Biden DOJ also paid Vera $73 million in contracts, mostly for providing legal services to immigrant children. In just over one year, HHS paid Vera nearly $200 million for refugee assistance. Vera says it aims to establish a right to representation for all immigrants facing deportation. That's a rather curious stance to take under Biden, when at least 9 million illegals entered the country. Meanwhile, NGOs received hefty government funding to house and transport immigrants across the country. The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, one of many such groups, received 98% of its revenue, a whopping $284 million, from government grants in the 2023 fiscal year. The Foundation to Promote Open Society gave the group $75 grand. The government also supports the left's dark money network indirectly. Federal employees in a union give part of their taxpayer-funded paychecks to the union, ostensibly for representation in bargaining for perks like working from home. Yet instead of using all the money to help employees, unions take a portion of those dues and send it to activist NGOs. The SEIU, for example, gave $1.6 million to New Venture Fund and $1.8 million to the Tides Foundation. The AFL-CIO gave $250 grand to New Venture Fund and $100 grand to the Tides Foundation, among other left-wing groups. Both the SEIU and the AFL-CIO bankrolled the Center for American Progress, which sent at least 60 staff into the Biden administration, and Demos, which helped write and helped implement a policy turning government offices into voter registration machines likely to help Democrats. Many of these unions have sued to block the Trump administration's reforms to the administrative state. Not only did the SEIU and AFL-CIO send part of members' dues to leftist causes, but they also benefit from a process known as official time. Federal employees can bill the taxpayer for time they spend not doing their jobs, but doing work for the union. This creates another stream of taxpayer funds supporting unions that then back leftist causes. As we've seen, your tax dollars fund the left's dark money network through grants, indirectly through union dues, and obliquely through taxpayer-funded union time. In this and other ways, Americans are forced to foot the bill for activist causes they may disagree with, like climate alarmism, gender ideology, open borders, and the left's racial rhetoric. Congress should seek to prevent this perverse state of affairs.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. O'Neil. Mr. Walter, you may begin. Thank you.

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Chairman VanDrew Drew, Ranking Member Crockett, distinguished members of the subcommittee, thank you for the honor of testifying. I'm president of the Capital Research Center, where we study money flows to nonprofits and other special interests. America's nonprofit sector is one of her glories, the envy of the world. But though I admire many American nonprofits, including, for instance, the Heritage Foundation, I don't want tax dollars going to Heritage or to my own nonprofit, and neither they nor we ever have or will accept a penny of government money. If tax dollars ever go to a nonprofit, it should probably be performing biblical good works: healing the sick, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and the like. Tax dollars should never go to nonprofits best known for pushing controversial social issues or meddling in politics here and abroad. Yet that is what so many federally funded nonprofits, especially those receiving USAID funding, have done. This improper funding harms both the charitable sector and our politics. It harms innocent American nonprofits abroad by stigmatizing all American nonprofits. I've heard from leaders of those nonprofits who resent their genuine good works being ignored as they become, in local eyes, just one more American NGO fighting for Soros's hard-left agenda. Imagine you're a nonprofit leader who struggles to raise private funding as she desperately fights human trafficking in a poor country. Meanwhile, a wealthy, Soros-funded network of NGOs in the same country, receiving the American government's imprimatur through USAID funds, is loudly trying to decriminalize the very prostitution that's the engine driving the human trafficking you're trying to stop. This left-wing collusion of government and NGOs not only hurts your noble charitable work directly, it also makes local citizens and government view you as the enemy. The same improper funding hurts our politics as well. We hear a lot about so-called dark money in politics. But what is darker than the funding of alleged charities that work in foreign countries to elect politicians they like to, say, the European Parliament, or to enact government policies involving controversial issues like prostitution and abortion, or even to change entire regimes? Much evidence has been published on the Soros network trying to do these things, as well as on the NGO networks of other American billionaires, including those with the same last name—foundation. My written testimony documents massive amounts of tax dollars going to numerous improper grantees. Examples include the 15 groups receiving federal funds who sued the current administration in just its first month. Four were Justice Department grantees, three USAID grantees. Then there's TransLatina Coalition, a radical group that advocates for, among other things, expanding abortion, abolishing ICE, and one day abolishing the police. It received funding from Justice as well as Labor and HHS. Fully half its 2023 revenues came from government, proving that so many NGOs—nongovernmental organizations—are really BGOs—basically government organizations. Another group should especially worry this Judiciary Committee: the Environmental Law Institute, which receives funds not only from Justice, but also from the EPA, the National Science Foundation, and the Departments of Homeland Security, Agriculture, and State. It runs the notorious Climate Judiciary Project, which allegedly educates federal and state judges on climate issues, but whose speakers, as one critic notes, come exclusively from the climate tort bar's witnesses and amicus brief filers. Senator Cruz accurately describes it as ex parte indoctrination. Many more grantees boosting the left's agenda occur in the immigration field. As one critic puts it, billions of tax dollars have been used to construct a shadow immigration system that operates in direct defiance of U.S. federal immigration law, yet is financed partly by congressional appropriations. One Justice Department grantee in this area is Chinese for Affirmative Action, which denounced Secretary Rubio's policy of revoking visas for persons tied to the Chinese Communist Party as racist and dangerous. Another Justice grantee and contractor is the Acacia Center for Justice, spun off from the Vera Institute, a hard-left, Soros-backed group famous for its soft-on-crime, soft-on-illegal-immigration advocacy. It received $769 million from the last administration, though it insists no immigrants should be detained, electronic surveillance of illegal aliens must be abolished, and the use of local law enforcement for immigration purposes must be dismantled. If this funding were put to a vote of the American public, little to none of it would survive the democratic process. This funding is democracy suppression. Thank you.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Walter. Mr. Gonzalez, you may begin.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Thank you, Chairman VanDrew Drew, Ranking Members Crockett and Raskin, for giving me the opportunity to appear before you today. The views I express are my own, should not be construed as representing the official position of the Heritage Foundation. For over a decade, I've studied how leftist nonprofits, particularly George Soros's Open Society Foundations, team up with government agencies like USAID to push the pet causes of the left domestically and overseas. These agendas promoting divisive issues like transgenderism for minors, euthanasia, and drug decriminalization lack broad support in the U.S. and harm our national security interests by alienating conservative societies overseas. Eliminating this nexus between big left and our money is at the heart of much of what DOGE has done since President Trump took office. I have firsthand experience with how this nexus can hurt Americans. In March 2017, I wrote a Heritage Foundation report calling for Congress and the State Department to investigate joint efforts between Soros groups and USAID. I wrote that in the promotion of radical agendas in several countries, USAID has found an ideal partner in George Soros, who throws his considerable fortune behind efforts to fight traditional Western values. The hearings I called for in my piece never took place until today, but something did happen to me. Two and a half months after my report, a shadowy outfit calling itself the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project published a sinister article that smeared me and the Heritage Foundation. When I looked into it, it turned out that the OCCRP was funded both by Soros foundations and USAID. I quickly wrote a column refuting their smears and said the OCCRP did what bullies— sorry, and I quickly wrote a column refuting their smears, and the OCCRP did what bullies always do. It backtracked, amending its report. But let's not lose sight of what happened. A foreign entity backed by Soros and my own tax dollars was attacking me, an American, for daring to question the influence of the nexus in Macedonia. I want to underline that I believe it is Soros's right to spend his money supporting his convictions. I may not agree with these ideas, but I would not call for interference in any American's right to act politically. Likewise, of course, some of the USAID programs did do good. I'm glad that Secretary Rubio says he will keep some programs if they advance U.S. interests. What I do take issue with is the U.S. government working with leftist NGOs to promote causes with which large majorities of Americans disagree and which are inimical to U.S. interests. You see, the left has cleverly built a machine to finance itself with money that the taxman extorts from hardworking Americans. Because it has captured the cultural heights, this new left has been able to invent some terms that make resistance difficult. Thus we have sustainability, sex workers, and compassion care rather than economy-crushing climate extremism, prostitution and human trafficking, and killing grandma once she's become a burden. It doesn't matter what you call any of these activities, however. They all turn cities into Dante-esque hellholes and leave behind human debris, men and women who are empty husks rather than beings with purpose and hope. The collusion between big left and taxpayer money peaked under the Obama and Biden administrations. In Guatemala, USAID's focus on activists who also received financing from Soros institutions and the Ford Foundation frustrated the pro-U.S. President Alejandro Giammattei, who once told me he thought our embassy was undermining his government. In Hungary, USAID provided funding to the OSF, which went on to spend $781 million between 2016 and 2023 in pursuit of its political agenda. Hungary, lest we forget, is a strategically located U.S. ally, whether liberals like its pro-U.S. prime minister or not. And the same thing happened in Macedonia, where an adviser to former President Ivanov, also pro-U.S., told me that USAID and OSF had begun a regime-change operation. Dismantling this nexus is critical. This is why President Trump has taken up arms against woke universities, museums, public broadcasters—a battle being played out in the Senate today—and other institutions laundering the hard-earned money of Americans on behalf of cultural Marxism. However, I also urge this committee to demand a comprehensive audit of USAID and government entities to expose how taxpayer money is spent and with whom. I want to thank you for your time and for letting me address this important matter.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Gonzalez. Ambassador CdeBaca, you may begin.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Chairman VanDrew Drew and Chairman Jordan, Ranking Members Raskin and Crockett, members of the subcommittee: I'm Luis C.deBaca, a proud alum of the Judiciary Committee staff. It's an honor to be back in this room. I spent almost 25 years in government, much of it investigating and prosecuting cases involving human trafficking and other crimes. America has always led the fight against transnational crime, especially human trafficking, and I've seen firsthand how important law enforcement and NGO partnerships are from across the ideological spectrum in protecting the American people. Those partnerships can't be assembled in the middle of a case. It's too late at that point. And so DOJ, USAID, and the State Department worked collaboratively to bring criminals to justice and save and support victims of trafficking and sexual abuse around the world. But it takes partners. Motivated by their faith, by their dedication to crime victims, and their compassion for the abused and neglected, NGOs and governments worked together and made Americans safer. Some highlights: we worked with environmental groups and the Catholic Church to rescue Filipino and Indonesian workers lured into horrible conditions at sea. In Mexico, USAID funding stood up modern court systems that could withstand the pressure of the cartels, while DOJ provided prosecutor training and the State Department supported evangelical groups in providing shelter to sex trafficking victims. In Peru, Justice, AID, and State coordinated funding to entities that ran the gamut from law enforcement to legal service providers to Catholic nuns, all in order to choke off the profits from illegal gold mining and the sex trafficking that followed in its wake. And today DHS seizures of slave-made goods continue, and hopefully intensifies, because of partnerships with NGOs who bring credible referrals about Uyghur and other forced labor in the supply chain. These efforts worked thanks to the support of Congress, interagency coordination, and vital collaboration with NGOs. It's a fight that's always been proudly bipartisan and powered by right-left coalitions because it embodies American values. I'm proud to have worked with a diverse range of NGOs on these issues, from International Justice Mission and the Heritage Foundation to Human Rights Watch and Rabbis for Human Rights. Not all of the NGOs apply for government funding, but when they do, they receive support that comes with the highest standards. They're subjected to thorough reviews, including vetting to prevent trafficking, terrorism, human rights violations, or other criminal activity. Congress provided the rules guiding these reviews, and when I was in government, we worked closely with our committees of oversight every step of the way. Additionally, to maximize effect and to prevent redundancy, anti-trafficking funding is coordinated across the agencies. Safeguards don't stop just at issuance. The work is tested through ongoing grants monitoring and monitoring and evaluation efforts. The results are not just protection and restoration of victims, but prosecution and convictions. But in recent weeks, innovative offices have been defunded and shut down or moved about on agency org charts in service of an imaginary set of efficiencies. Having decimated USAID, in recent days the administration has gutted offices devoted to global criminal justice, anti-terrorism, and counter-trafficking. When experts are forced out, reassigned, or riffed, America is less safe. The only actors that should welcome these moves are criminals and those corrupt or complacent nations that allow them to act with impunity. So is there a hidden agenda here? Every nonprofit that works to support survivors does indeed have a policy agenda: they're committed to serving trafficking victims. They do from all parts of our political system and for countless reasons, but they stand up for trafficking victims. Women's shelters that have expanded their mission beyond domestic violence; churches, or even just motivated people of faith who've heard the call to serve; worker organizations that won't stand for abuses in the fields; long-haul truckers who've asked, What can I do? Their commitment and the ideological and cultural diversity that matches the bipartisan anti-trafficking consensus of this committee is something we should celebrate. They deserve our thanks and the thanks of the American people for their tireless efforts. For me, this goes beyond my law enforcement career. My parents weren't just farmers and ranchers. They implemented these types of partnerships during the Cold War. During the first Bush administration, the government sent my parents out to help post-socialist societies transition to a capitalist agricultural system. Later, my mother witnessed the Chinese showing up in West Africa, competing for the hearts and minds of the Ghanaian people through road-building projects. But today, my 90-year-old mother worries about the price she can get for her soybeans, given the sudden reduction of U.S. food assistance. And she worries about the loss of American power and stature in the world. Stepping away from U.S. leadership doesn't just impact that village in Africa; it impacts the small towns of rural America, for whom feeding the world and raising a family is everything. Stepping away from the United States leadership and partnerships that advance them make us less safe at home and abroad. Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Ambassador CdeBaca. Without objection, Mr. Kiley will be permitted to participate in today's hearing for the purpose of questioning the witnesses if a member yields them time— yields him time for that purpose. We're now going to proceed under the 5-minute rule with questions, and the chair will recognize— Let me see who's going to go first here. Actually, you ready? Okay. The chair will recognize the gentleman from Alabama.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And this will be for our Republican witnesses. What are some of the worst federal grants that the Biden-Harris administration approved? What about it, Mr. O'Neil? What's your opinion? What's the worst federal grant that you heard of? Top 10, maybe.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

There are too many to choose from, but I think the biggest overall is just the way that we funded the immigration-industrial complex that moved illegal aliens across the country through, as The Heritage Foundation's project showed, to every single congressional district except one.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Mr. Gonzalez, do you have a worst?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Yeah, I would say the grants that Samantha Power, the head of USAID, and USAID itself made to Hungarian opposition forces in in 2023, I think it was. Hungary is a NATO ally which borders Ukraine. We shouldn't be trying to do regime change as our ambassador was doing in Budapest. That was This is not soft power. This is the opposite. So that was really, I don't know, very counterproductive, I think, to the kind of policy we should have with an ally.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

with an ally, and Viktor Orbán is a fine president, an ally of the country.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

So, he's the prime minister. Yes, the left doesn't like him. He's very pro-US. Yes, I don't, whatever. Either way, we shouldn't be doing this in an allied country,

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

and securing their borders. He was pretty prone on that too. Mr. Walter, what about it? What, what's your,

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

I, too, am overwhelmed a little by the question, and I default to a website actually that we have called thedogefiles.org, which lists what we believe to be the worst grants from most of the main departments of the federal government.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

So, Mr. O'Neil, how many individuals involved in these leftist dark money groups work within the Biden-Harris administration? Any idea?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

A specific number I don't have. I do know that 60 officials went from the Center for American Progress to the Biden administration. But overall, what I'll say is there are some that really stand out. I think of Tracy Stone-Manning, who was actually at the National Wildlife Federation, who's notorious because she wrote a letter on behalf of tree-spiking eco-terrorists. And then she led up a department, the Bureau of Land Management, that oversees about half of the federal lands in the United States.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Mr. Walter, how much federal funding has Arabella Advisors' network received?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Surprisingly, there's not a large quantity of that, although Mr. O'Neil written testimony documents some of the examples to the New Venture Fund and elsewhere.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

What were the initiatives and policies? Do any of you know what the Arabella Advisors network were pushing? Do you Are you familiar with those?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Oh, they run the gamut on the left. So I focused on the New Venture Fund for the research for this, but they funded the Center for American Progress, which pushes climate alarmism, critical race theory, focus on gender ideology. They fund the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation, as I mentioned, the Sierra Club, the Human Rights Campaign, and one of the biggest ones for me, the Southern Poverty Law Center, which

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Alabama I'm very familiar with. Yes. Yeah. So, Mr. Gonzalez, how did the Biden-Harris administration cut a deal with the far-left organizations to swiftly obtain and hold radio stations in the U.S.?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

You're talking about the radio stations that were bought with money that George Soros facilitated, the Spanish-language radio stations in 2023, I believe. Are you talking about those?

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Yes.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Are you talking about the ones last year? Because he also made a purchase.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

I wasn't aware. I just— in general, buying up the radio stations for me is a concern. And, and how do we go through that process? And how do they fund it, number one? And, and what was the purpose behind it? Do we know?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Well, the FCC, Brendan Carr, which is now the the chairman of the FCC, said that approval of that purchase was was fast-tracked and it shouldn't have been because a big component of the of the the funds came from overseas, and that requires more time to look into them. I believe that he's going— now that he's a chairman, I believe he's going back and looking into this. I forget the name of the of the radio station consortium, but it's going to come to me in a minute.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

So what process do you think should have been followed? What process? Well, the

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

process— yeah, take more time. I think that's what that's what Brendan Carr complained about, that the time that it's supposed to take in looking into who these not donors, but who these funds are,

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

especially with foreign money being involved.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Yeah, because it was foreign money. That's the thing.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Sure. What is the effect of the radio acquisition? What do you think the endgame is from the left?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Well, I think it's become very clear over the years that they're very bad at talk radio. And this is the, the left is, is wants to control the, the, the, you know, the narrative, just like they have been able to control a lot of the media, just not talk radio because it's just not entertaining. So they've been trying to catch up to that for a very long time.

Rep. Barry Moore (R-AL)SPEAKER_02

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm out of time. I'll yield back.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you. I thank the gentleman. I will recognize Mr. Johnson from Georgia.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The majority's witnesses have repeatedly condemned the revolving door between what they call leftist nonprofits and the federal government, but they need to take a long, hard look in the mirror and talk about what's happening with MAGA billionaire corrupt corporate conservative front groups, such as The Heritage Foundation, a giant recipient of dark money, and that happens to be your employer, Mr. Gonzalez, correct?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Um, I, I'd certainly take— you

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

work for The Heritage Foundation with

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

the premise that we see dark money. Yes, I'm very, very

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

proud. And you've gotten a lot of dark money from Charles Koch, right?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Uh, no, actually, no, we don't. Well, let

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

me ask you this.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Very

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Let me ask you this. Who's the biggest dark money guy out there between Charles Koch, who's worth $71.4 billion, and George Soros, who's only worth a measly $7.2 billion? Who's the biggest dark money guy out there between those two?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

I don't know. Actually, I want to thank you for letting us sit down. You

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Can't say that it's Charles Koch.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Wait, no. First of all, you are aware that Charles Koch is a libertarian.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Let me just— we're

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

not libertarian,

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Let me just move on, sir. Ahead of the 2024 presidential election, a network of right-wing dark money groups led by the Heritage Foundation launched the notorious and infamous Project 2025, a federal policy agenda for the second Trump administration that provides a blueprint for the radical and unconstitutional empowerment of the executive branch to shutter bureaus and offices, overturn regulations, and replace thousands of public-sector employees with political cronies and yes-men, all in the services of a right-wing, radical, corrupt corporate agenda. As of March of 2024, Project 2025 advisory groups have received more than $55 million from donor networks led by Leonard Leo and Charles Koch. Now, during the campaign, which billionaire Elon Musk, by the way, purchased with about $275 million in dark money, Donald Trump swore he had nothing to do with Project 2025. But just like he lied about releasing the Epstein files, he also lied about his plan to implement Project 2025. Isn't that right, Mr. Walter? Didn't he lie? You don't know?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

You

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

won't say? Are you afraid?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

I'm quite awake. I don't

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

What about you, Mr. O'Neil? Did he lie?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Did— no, he said he didn't read

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

it. Trump, he told the truth. He told

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

the

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

truth. He said he didn't read it.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

He said he didn't read Project 2025.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

They said he was going to release the Epstein files.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

I mean,

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Well, let me move on. Since the inauguration, since the inauguration, Trump administration officials have worked tirelessly to implement Project 2025 and even has the author of Project 2025 as the Office of Management and Budget director. Russell Vought used to be the vice president of Heritage Action, right, Mr. Gonzalez?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

I believe he had a position. Big

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

dark money guy used to be head of your operation, and now he is in the revolving door with the second Trump administration. Mr. Gonzalez, you've worked for the Heritage Foundation since 2009. Did you have any involvement with the creation and authorship of this infamous document, Project 2025?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Oh, yes, sir. I am proud to say that I wrote an essay in it.

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

Proud of it?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

And I've— yes. And I've worked for every version of this project, which we've had every 4 years. Had an election year. It's called mandates

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

for leadership. People are not with you on that, Mr. Gonzalez. And I'm

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

just

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

giving you the facts. And I'm going to tell you, in my remaining time, I'm going to sum up the testimony of you 3 guys, the Republican witnesses. And, and to sum it up, you are anti-racial justice, you're anti-gender equity, and you're anti-environmental protection. And with that,

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Should we repeat our

Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA)SPEAKER_05

testimony? I will yield back the remainder of my time.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Can we have time?

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

There is no remainder of time. I'm sorry, Mr. Gonzalez. You're going to get a chance. So, I think when some other people ask you questions, you'll have an ability to answer, actually answer the question. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. I now recognize Dr. Onder from Missouri.

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to all the witnesses for being here today. First, Mr. Gonzalez, again, you work for The Heritage Foundation. Does The Heritage Foundation receive any federal government money?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Zero.

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

any USAID money? Zero. Okay. And any of these other organizations that receive— do you any grants from the Vera Foundation, which does receive federal government money?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

No.

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

I think my Democrat colleagues missed the point of today's hearing.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Yeah,

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

George Soros has every business to spend his own money however he sees fit, as does Charles Koch, as does Elon Musk. The point is, we are talking about taxpayers' money here today. And the idea that these left-wing so-called NGOs—I think one of you said, called them BGOs, basically government organizations. Was that you, Mr. Walter? They're just basically—they're acting as money laundering operations from our pockets, my taxpayers who I represent in Missouri, to these leftist causes. That is antithetical to a democratic republic like we work at, we live in, we think we live in. Mr. Walter, during President Trump's first few weeks in office, DOGE identified federal funding that was not being used as as Congress intended. Many times I heard my Democrat colleagues say, Well, it was appropriated, so, this NGO or this government agency has a right to it. One egregious example was federal funding of $1.3 million to the NIH's Institute of Nursing Research, which was awarded to a nonprofit to partner with Girl2Girl to text minors sex education content, including how to have sex with other minor girls. Girl2Girl's website encouraged girls not to tell their parents that they're taking part in this research. The federal government—the federal government should not be in this business of doing research that parents would disapprove of. Going forward, we need to ensure that agencies are complying with existing transparency requirements. Now, this NIH grant was identified through USAspending.gov, but most of DOGE's work was uncovering grant misuse that was not publicly reported. USAspending.gov was created by Congress through the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006, which required OMB and Treasury to coordinate with federal agencies to publicly post federal awards on a on a publicly searchable website. But a 2023 GAO report found that 49 of 52 federal agencies didn't report data to USAspending.gov, and some of the agencies reported COVID spending that didn't match their annual financial reports. Mr. Walter, would you say that the current version of USAspending.gov is compliant with this law?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Uh, no, as you point out, there seems to be evidence that it hasn't. Plus, there's a huge thing that needs to be done. The grants are not listed by the grantee's EIN number, you know, their tax ID number, which would make it enormously simpler to find what you're looking for,

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

right? Oh, so you mentioned your website, dogefiles.org. Yes I imagine it's fair for me to say that there are things in dogefiles.org that I couldn't find on USA—

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Well, we used USAspending to get it, but believe me, it's a struggle to use it. It needs to be much better.

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

It was not easy. Okay, what can, what can we do on this committee to ensure that agencies under our jurisdiction are complying with existing transparency requirements?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Uh, well, I'm not aware of any accountability, right? So if I'm an agency and I don't do what I'm supposed to, who cares what happens if, if anybody even finds it out?

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN

Okay.

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

How can we increase transparency and accounts for subawards and subcontracts? Is that part of the problem, that it goes to, there's a contract, but then, I think Mr. O'Neil maybe alluded to some of this, and then it goes to a contractor who then awards it to another subcontractor and the money cannot be followed?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Yeah, there's a little bit of that sort of information on USAspending, but absolutely not all of it. And some of the most notorious things in the last administration were some of the green slush funds that got created in the billions.

Rep. Robert Onder (R-MO)SPEAKER_01

Very good. Okay. Thank you very much for your testimony. I yield back.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Dr. Onder. I now recognize the ranking member of the whole committee, Mr. Raskin.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ambassador C.deBaca, is there anything illegal about not-for-profits spending money on a priority that a government agency or department also has? And I'll give you an example. The Gates Foundation has spent $30 billion to advance vaccines, both research and spreading vaccines around the world. USAID spent $3 billion over the last decade on that. Is that either illegal or unusual that you would have a convergence of the not-for-profit philanthropic sector with a governmental priority?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

It's not illegal, and in fact it is a best practice so that you can extend both the governmental and the philanthropic spending.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

And presumably we could we could expect the same thing under R.F. Kennedy Jr., who opposes vaccines. He opposes vaccine research. He wants to stop vaccine programs. And presumably, he's going to, all of the same people that he just packed the advisory committee with will be getting grants to go and try to stop vaccine research. And as our colleagues constantly say, that's Elections count. Elections matter. And RFK Jr.'s in there. So, there's not much that can be do about it. We can have a a hearing lamenting it and bewailing it. I'd much rather have money going into promoting vaccine research and distribution than opposing it. But that's the difference between our two parties. Is there anything illegal about people in not-for-profits going to work in the federal government in a new administration?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

No, sir.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

In fact, a great example of that is this guy, Ed Martin, who was for a while the acting US attorney in the District of Columbia. They were forced to withdraw his nomination when it turned out that his close friend is a neo-Nazi who dresses up like Adolf Hitler. And they just switched over to appointing him to a non-confirmable position in the Department of Justice, believe it or not, running the task force on weaponization. But in any event, he ran something called the Patriot Freedom Project, which is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization that supported January 6th defendants and their families, more than 100 criminal defendants, including people who violently assaulted our police officers, wounding them, injuring them, disfiguring them, permanently disabling them. And then he went into the government, and he's had close ties. In fact, he dismissed some of the prosecutions against these people, and they have fired lots of January 6th prosecutors. That looks like a really tight, little revolving-door channel. And it's not just him. In fact, they hired an actual January 6th insurrectionist who was convicted of crimes to go work for him at that same entity in the Department of Justice. As much as we might hate it, as much as we might think the American people should know about it, that the criminals in this soft-on-crime administration are taking over at the Department of Justice, it's hard to say that there's anything illegal about it, right? So if somebody goes from working at the Gates Foundation or the Open Society Institute at the State Department, is there anything illegal or criminal about that? Is there anything that should cause public alarm in the way these gentlemen are trying to stimulate it?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

No, sir.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

Well, in fact, is there anything illegal about the government, if it's spending funds appropriately, giving to organizations that other people disagree with? I think some of the witnesses were saying the vast majority of people disagree with it, which, of course, our colleagues would answer by saying that's what elections are for. In other words, we've elected a particular government. Now, I'll give you an example that I just looked it up: $434 million has gone in the first Trump administration, and I'm sure more will flow now, to crisis pregnancy centers, okay, who, from our perspective, lure young people in and give them distorted or tilted information about abortion. And I'm sure that's what they say about Planned Parenthood. Okay, that's politics. People have different perspectives on things. But hundreds of millions, presumably billions, of dollars are going to go to the crisis pregnancy centers, which a lot of people think are completely objectionable. Is that illegal because some other people disagree with it?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

It is not.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

It's not illegal. It's not criminal. This hearing is just weird. It's just people getting up and complaining about things that happen under an administration they disagree with when the administration they agree with is doing the exact same thing on a mirror-image basis. But there's something that everybody here, at least I used to think, agreed with, which is let's release the Epstein files. That guy is a child sex offender who was convicted of it and then took his life before the larger trial could take place. His associate, Ms. Maxwell, is in jail for 20 years. The whole country is saying release the files. That's what Donald Trump said. That's what JD Vance said. That's what the attorney general said. That's what the FBI director said. And now suddenly they want to sweep the whole thing under the rug. Why don't we have a real hearing with real government officials talking about the government and talking about a real investigation with the real problem, which is the nationwide crisis in the sexual abuse of children and human trafficking? Why don't we do that? I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Ranking member yields back. And with that, I believe that, Mr. Schmidt, you're going to yield your time, is that correct? Yes Okay, so Mr. Schmidt is going to yield his time to Mr. Kiley, who's not going to speak quite yet, because Mr. Gill is in front of you. But I wanted to make that note. Okay, thank you, Mr. Schmidt. With that, Mr. Gill is next in line from the great state of Texas.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for putting this hearing together here and and helping us continue to identify waste, fraud, and abuse that we can cut out of our federal budget, particularly abuse that is pushing left-wing pet projects. But before I jump into that, I'd like to address something that one of my colleagues on on the other side of the aisle mentioned earlier about gender equity. I find it particularly amusing that the party who doesn't know how many genders there are to begin with has the gall to lecture us about gender equity. But if we want to talk about gender equity, let's talk about it. Which party believes that men should be using women's bathrooms? It's not this side of the aisle; it's the Democrat Party. Which party believes that men should be playing in women's sports? It's not this side of the aisle; it's the Democrat Party. Which party believes that our tax dollars should fund transgender surgeries for minors? It's not this side of the aisle; it's that side of the aisle. And those are things that they don't like to talk about because they know how wildly unpopular they are with the American people. But that is the reality, and that's what what we are up against right now, is a Democrat Party that is pushing some of the most wild and perverse social programs on the American people. But with that said, I'd like to jump into the the point of this hearing, which is not gender equity. It's to talk about other left-wing projects. And Mr. Gonzalez, thank you for for being here, and thank you for taking the time. During President Biden's tenure, USAID under Samantha Power took a particular interest in Hungary. Is that right?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Uh, yes, that's right, Congressman.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Would you say that USAID's involvement in that country, including funding media organizations, was nonpartisan, or do you think that was used to push a particular agenda?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Oh, it was meant to do regime change in a NATO ally, uh, and a very key NATO ally. Uh, that was unconscionable.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Would you say that Hungary is an important NATO ally in Central and Eastern Europe?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Yes, it borders Ukraine. I believe, yes, it borders Serbia as well. Yeah, this is not This was something we should never be doing this in in friendly countries to begin with. The fact that Samantha Power did this and met with with leaders of the opposition before she met with government ministers whom she scolded and our ambassador—well, I don't want to go into it because I know you have more more questions, but—

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Well, that's where I'm going with this. Why do you think that the Biden administration was so interested in using our tax dollars to funnel monetary support for domestic political opposition in an allied nation in order to harm a democratically elected government?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Well, for the same reason it did it in Guatemala and Macedonia with equally pro-U.S. leaders. It just didn't like conservative governments that were trying to do things like fighting for life, fighting for demographic growth. In all these countries, disagreed with their foreign policy. All these leaders were also very pro-Israel, pro-Taiwan in the case of Guatemala. So, I think that it was just the Biden administration disagreed with the politics of these countries, even though it went against U.S. interests to disagree with these governments.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Right, and that's where I was going as well. Do you think that any of Hungary's domestic policies in question here, whether it's related to woke ideology or identity politics or migration, have any bearing on America's national security interests in the region?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

It was completely the opposite. It played exactly into Vladimir Putin's hands. It made pro-American Hungarians and Guatemalans or Macedonians question the United States and think of alternatives. It was very misguided.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

And shifting focus to the United States, do you think that there are similar left-wing, uh, virtually money laundering operations here that are aimed at influencing American politics, particularly through the media?

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Yeah, Mr. Soros said very early on, I believe in the mid-'90s, that he wanted to turn his attention inward towards the United States. He's an American, he's free to do so. As I said in my testimony, I'm also free to criticize him. I disagree with him on the positions he takes. As I said, he's free to do that with his money; I'm free to criticize.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Right. And I think we can also look to taxpayer-funded propaganda outlets like NPR and PBS as well.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

I believe that's playing out today in the Senate. Yes.

Rep. Brandon Gill (R-TX)SPEAKER_06

Thank you for your time. We appreciate it.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Thank you.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Gill. I now recognize Ms. Crockett, the ranking member.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. Listen, I have heard some interesting things. I heard about fighting for life. And so, Mr. C.deBaca, I am just— or Ambassador C.deBaca, I am curious, does it look like you're fighting for life when you cut 17 million people off of their healthcare?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

It does not.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Does it look like you're fighting for life when you're kicking people in this country? I want to be clear, we're talking about the United States in this country off of food assistance.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

No, ma'am.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Okay. All right, well, this hearing supposedly about is being about radical leftists and whatnot, so I do have some questions about that. But before I get there, I am tripping about how much we are loving on Viktor Orbán here in the United States. Well, and I shouldn't say we, them, how much they are loving on Viktor Orbán. I have an interesting article that I would like to enter into the record as a UC.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Without objection.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Okay, thank you. Hungary's Orbán demonstrates how to dismantle democracy. Some of the interesting things that are said in here, number one, Trump went further in 2 months than Orbán could in 15 years. This year, faced with an increasingly unified opposition in Parliament that has rallied behind a charismatic lawyer and politician, Orbán's attacks on media, civil society, and freedom of assembly have gained momentum. This is part of my words. Yeah, my time was still going. In addition to that, there is mention that Orbán focused on ridding Hungary of any institution capable of checking his power. Sounds something like Donald Trump, does it not?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

I wouldn't necessarily speculate on the— on what the 2 presidents are doing.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Don't Don't speculate. I'm going to tell you: It sounds like Donald Trump. Now, while we are talking about taxpayer dollars, let me tell you, Donald Trump agreed with me at some point in time about this particular one. I have another UC. Elon Musk gets $8 million a day from taxpayers.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Objection.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. Listen, if we want to start talking about who's donating to who and who's who's getting money, last time I checked, Elon Musk did close to $300 million to get him into office, and it seems like there was a direct payment right back to him. I get that it's not a not-for-profit, but at the same time, it is federal dollars. And you know what? Earlier, someone mentioned these hellholes, talking about the cities, right? Talking about cities being hellholes. I just want to point to Los Angeles. I'm sure that's one of the cities they were referring to when they said that. Los Angeles contributes almost $20 billion in taxes. You know what? That's more than all states in this country except for four. So guess what? If we are going to push any ideologies, it seems like LA should have an outsized interest in the ideology, because it seems like they actually contribute more money than all these other states, especially these red states, to be clear. In fact, I have another UC

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

objection.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

All right. Blue states are bailing out red states. I have another UC

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

without objection.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Massachusetts sends more funding to the feds than any other state. It seems like blue states are constantly putting red states on life support, yet we've got these little red states that ain't contributing nothing, but they are definitely taking up a lot of money. It is interesting because the governor in California, I don't know if you caught this, but Governor Newsom was talking about just holding on to his dollars, because California is what they call a donor state, meaning that they actually contribute more than they take from the federal government. And then you can go down south to states like Louisiana, who are broke, and so they need California to pay in. So it is so interesting that we are so concerned about whether or not we are pushing certain ideologies. Ideologies But let me talk about some of these. I've got a few questions. We're going to play a game called Radical or Restorative. Radical or restorative: a nonprofit that provides shelter and legal aid to human trafficking survivors?

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

A DOJ-funded program that mentors at-risk youth to prevent gang violence,

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

A grant-funded organization that helps women fleeing domestic abuse with housing and trauma support.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

A USAID program that works to shut down scam compounds trafficking people in Southeast Asia,

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

A faith-based nonprofit helping migrant children reunite safely with family.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

A community group receiving DOJ funds to reduce gun violence in cities,

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

And the final one is a global initiative that prevents trafficking and keeps people from being forced into labor or sold into exploitation.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Restorative.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much, Mr. Ambassador. What's shocking is some of these programs are the very ones that Trump and my Republican colleagues are working to shut down if we really want to look at who is doing the work to help us. And as we have just talked about some sex trafficking, I'm still trying to understand if you have anything that you would like to contribute about the Epstein files that they absolutely refuse to release.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

Ma'am, I think it would be very helpful for the American public to be able to see the results that have evidently been kept in whatever that file is. There's been many years in which folks have investigated Mr. Epstein and those around him. He went to jail once. He was about to go to jail again before he died, and his compatriot is currently in prison. Those facts need to be known.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

Thank you so much. I will yield.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

The ranking member yields back. Thank you. I now recognize the chairman of the full committee, Mr. Jordan.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. O'Neil, who is the Southern Poverty Law Center?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Southern Poverty Law Center is a far-left radical activist group that routinely smears conservative and Christian organizations, putting them on a map with the Ku Klux Klan.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Well, first of all, does the Southern Poverty Law Center partner with the Open Society Foundations?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Yes, the Southern Poverty Law Center received 75 grand from Foundation to Promote Open Society.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

And the Open Society Foundations get money from the American taxpayers. Is that right?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

No, the Open Society Foundation does not. There was an arm of the Open Society Foundation that is now closed that received a large number. Yes,

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

It did get Okay. And as you pointed out, the Southern Poverty Law Center labels a lot of conservative groups as hate groups.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Yes, including Focus on the Family this year.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Focus on the Family, Alliance Defending Freedom, Family Research Council, Center for Immigration Studies, Moms for Liberty. Moms are now a hate group?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Yes, they put Moms for Liberty on there. They actually said that they are the—they compared them to the uptown Klan of the 1950s. And

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

You know what's interesting, I found this. We made an issue of this, and thank goodness it stopped with our new Justice Department. But in the old Justice Department under Mr. Biden, there was this, you may remember this, this memorandum put out by the Richmond FBI field office.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

You remember

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

this, Mr. O'Neil? Yeah. And do you know when they talked about traditional Catholics were extremists, do you know who they cited in the footnote in this? I got the actual FBI memorandum. You know who they cited in that memorandum?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

The Southern Poverty Law Center,

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Southern Poverty Law Center. Go figure. Okay, how about this? Who's the Tides Foundation?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

They're the oldest dark money pass-through organization. They pioneered the process that now Arabella Advisors has perfected.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

And I think in your testimony I'm looking at, you said the Service Employees International Union gave money to a group that then gave money to the Tides Foundation. Is that true?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

No, the SEIU gave directly to— Oh, they gave directly? And the Tides Foundation? Yes.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Yeah. And then, I think, also in your testimony, you point out that the Tides Foundation not only got money from left-wing union groups, but they also got money directly from the taxpayers through USAID. Is that right?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Correct, it was $27 million.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

$27 million.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

It was awarded. Not all of those grants were fulfilled.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

And what's the Tides Foundation up to? What kind of crazy things are they doing with taxpayer money and left-wing employee union money? What are they doing?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

bankrolling the Southern Poverty Law Center, for one. They also have an in-house nonprofit called Palestine Legal,

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

The Tides Foundation gets a boatload of taxpayer money. People I get the privilege of representing from the 4th District of Ohio, some of their money is going to the Tides Foundation. That is then going to the Southern Poverty Law Center, where they can label moms as terrorists and say that if you're a Catholic, you're an extremist. That all happens with American tax dollars. Is that right?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

we don't have concrete proof of the fact of the Tides Center receiving money that they then gave to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Money is

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

fungible. We are— we're not— we're not— so

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

your overall point is 100%.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Okay. So, that's all happening here in the United States. But it's even worse, right? Because the Tides Foundation also gets involved, Mr. Gonzalez was pointing to this, gets involved overseas as well. And one of the things we know they're doing—correct me if I'm wrong, Mr. O'Neil—that we know they're doing is they're taking some of that money to undermine our allies and friends like Prime Minister Netanyahu in the state of Israel. Is that right?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Well, one of the big things they have is an in-house nonprofit representing anti-Israel rioters on college campuses called Palestine Legal.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Yeah.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

So, yes.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

So they're doing it here and there, undermining Israel here and there, anti-Semitic activity here on our campuses, all with American tax money. Wow.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Yeah.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Wow. And the other side says again, Mr. Van VanDrew shouldn't be having this hearing. Are you kidding me? American tax dollars used to say moms are terrorists, we're going to go after pro-life Catholics, and our best friend internationally, our best ally, the state of Israel, we're going to undermine their government while we're at it. Such a deal for the taxpayers, huh?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

On the point from Ranking Member Raskin, he noted that George Soros does not have power. Alex Soros was asked if he would run for office, and he said that he would not because he believes that as head of the Open Society Foundations, he has more power than he ever would if he had any office in the land.

Full Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH)SPEAKER_08

Well, based on what we just described, it sure looks like they got a lot of influence. And all we're saying is maybe we shouldn't send American tax dollars to these organizations that are undermining American taxpayers. Wow. And somehow we're not supposed to have this hearing. I yield

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

back. Will the gentleman yield just quickly?

SPEAKER_UNKNOWN

Last 4 seconds.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

All I want to say— I didn't say he didn't have power. I said he did not have official governmental power. Thank you.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

I have a UC.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Gentleman yields back without objection.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

This is from the Pennsylvania Independent. Convicted sex offender serves as faith leader of Philly Moms for Liberty chapter.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

We'll now recognize Mr. Kiley.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA)SPEAKER_09

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I did want to briefly address a comment that the ranking member, the representative from Texas, made about my state, California, claiming that our state gives disproportionately to the federal government and is some sort of donor state. Actually, the state of California gives nothing to the federal government. Individuals and businesses do pay taxes, and Governor Newsom's suggestion that we should withhold those taxes, as our Treasury Secretary has pointed out, is threatening to commit the felony of criminal tax evasion. As to this notion that Los Angeles is somehow a model of good governance, just today, Los Angeles came out with its new homelessness numbers. The current count is 72,308. The police chief in LA has formally advised people not to wear jewelry when they go outside because they will get mugged. The city just announced 614 layoffs because the finances are such a mess. And this is to say nothing of the recent riots and the wildfire— catastrophic wildfires that came after the mayor defunded the fire department. But on to the topic of today's hearing. It's bad enough that we have all of this funding going towards NGOs that then support radical ideological causes. Sort of the logical next step that we've seen is funding organizations that then directly commit or facilitate criminal activity. And this is exactly what we saw with respect to the recent riots in Los Angeles, where you had a group known as CHIRLA, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, that played a central role in organizing the riots. They made use of a hotline through Signal where they would inform rioters at any given moment where ICE personnel could be found, so those individuals could then converge, they could disrupt their operations, they could use commercial dumpsters as battering rams, they could assault officers, and so forth. CHIRLA, by the way, has been implicated in other ways in all of the recent chaos that we've seen. For example, the incident where tire spikes were used to disable the vehicles of Border Patrol, the individuals engaging in these crimes were carrying the tire spikes in bags with CHIRLA's name on them. And to top it all off, Karen Bass's recent proposal to give cash cards to illegal immigrants supposedly affected by ICE operations are being distributed to them by, you guessed it, CHIRLA. So I've introduced a bill, the No Tax Dollars for Riots Act, which will make sure that organizations like this do not continue to get funding and indeed that they cannot claim tax-exempt status. President Trump has enthusiastically endorsed that bill and said it should be passed immediately. On top of that, this committee, the House Judiciary Committee, has opened an investigation into CHIRLA's use of the federal funding that it received during the Biden administration. It also received $34 million from California, accounting for the vast majority of its revenue. It's effectively a subsidiary of the state, or a subsidiary of the sanctuary state, if you will. So with all that being said, Mr. O'Neil, or if Mr. Gonzalez or our other witnesses would like to chime in on this, how problematic is this that we now have these public taxpayer funds being used to directly facilitate criminal activity?

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Extremely.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Thank you for your question. Yes, in fact, a lot of the riots we have seen on our streets, the college encampments, all of these things are paid for, which surely, I think, by the way, received $30 million, if I'm working from memory.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA)SPEAKER_09

$34 million most recently from the state.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

Yeah most recently from the taxpayer. And thank you for making that distinction between the state of California and California's hard-put taxpayers. So CHIRLA just raked in government money and was one of the the organizers of the riots we saw in Los Angeles. But everywhere we have we've seen, you talked about the Tides Foundation, in New York, the ANSWER Coalition, Students for Justice in Palestine, all these groups are either received funding from these dark money people or are fiscal or these dark money centers are fiscal sponsors of them. So, you know, I think it is very concerning, even in cases where, and I think in these cases that I'm talking about crimes have have been committed, but even in cases where there's no it's not illegal or criminal, there's such a thing as unseemly and disturbing, and we should be able to talk about these things.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (I-CA)SPEAKER_09

Absolutely. And there's certainly a whole range of conduct that is objectionable, but it's particularly objectionable where the funds are used in a way that actually violates other laws that we have in place. Thank you very much to my colleague from Kansas, Mr. Schmidt, for yielding the time. I yield the remainder of my time to the chair.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Colley, and I recognize myself for 5 minutes. I almost don't know where to begin. It was interesting, you know, all the back-and-forth. And I do have to say this, and it's partially complimentary and it's just an observation, I do have to admit, my friends to the left of me, both geographically and also politically, they're good. They're really good at it. And Mr. Raskin, both of you are, but I mean all of you are, actually. Mr. Raskin, particularly good at conflating and blurring. He mentioned immigration. I always bring this up through other hearings as well. There is a difference between legal and illegal immigration. There's a difference. And nobody on this side has any problem with legal immigration. That's what makes America. And let's be clear about it. Illegal immigration, and in some cases where we had people on the terror watch list that were in this country, and people that were convicted or indicted of crimes either in their country of origin or here, yeah, we're against that. Absolutely. I think we'll all say it proudly. We're against it. Also, Mr. Raskin, and I think Ms. Crockett as well, had brought up that there's nothing illegal. I agree. The purpose of the hearing is This wasn't talking about the legality that we don't know of. Maybe there is, but we don't know of illegal activity. But the point is, it's distasteful. It's disturbing. It's disgusting. And if people if the American public had to sit through this today and other hearings we've had, they would be very deeply upset at where their money is going. Mr. Raskin called this a loser hearing. You know who's losing? The taxpayers, the union members, when their money gets drained away to go for these things that the vast majority of them do not believe in. You know, Mr. Soros is good at this, and that's why we're doing this. We're not doing We didn't say we should take him to jail tomorrow, but he's good at it. He establishes He helps to establish these NGOs, these not-for-profits, and then they make sure that millions and millions of dollars flow to them from the taxpayer. It's a pretty ingenious idea. He's making money on his investment, and we think it's wrong, and we don't think it should happen. So, I just wanted to clear the air on that, but these guys are good. Mr. Mr. No, because I would, and normally, you know, we get along. I try to. But Mr. Walter, can you explain why Soros's model is far more dangerous to public policy and democratic accountability than people realize?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Certainly. And by the way, I'm happy to give the ranking member an example of illegality. There are documents from Soros's own 501(c)(3) nonprofits that show that money was being spent to influence elections to the European Parliament, and, of course, that's a violation of 501(c)(3) limitations on political activity. I'd be happy to provide the documents to you if you'd like. There's also—

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

charged with that. Excuse

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

me?

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

Were they charged? Were there criminal charges brought?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Sadly, no. Nor was there ever a hearing in Congress about it. But there's also the question of our next report on Mr. Soros is going to show over $80 million going to nonprofits that support terrorism. And again, that is debatably not kosher under 501(c)(3) laws. But the way that the network operates is you have, in the case of Soros, dozens, even hundreds of things. There's an Open Society Macedonia, there's an Open Society Prague, on and on. Many of these entities getting federal tax dollars as well as Mr. Soros's private monies. And as Mr. Gonzalez was explaining, they are willing to go up to and including regime change, as well as trying to change who's elected to the European Parliament.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Mr. Walter, and I assume that's why you would think this is dangerous. Am I right, Mr. Walter?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Yes. I

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

mean, this is a dangerous situation. And, you know, you even bring a good point. Some of it very well may be illegal, but at the very, very least, it's disturbing, distasteful, of concern. And that's why we're having the hearing. The American people, I know, and I wish, I wish millions are watching this— quite frankly, they're not— disturb— deserve to know about this disturbing information. That's the point of this.

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

One other quick thing too, by the way. Uh, please

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

quickly, because I have other questions.

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Ambassador C.deBaca has been a hero in fighting human trafficking. Soros, on the other hand, is one of the greatest pushers of decriminalizing prostitution throughout the entire world, which is one of the engines of human trafficking. There's a journal article on precisely that.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. Walter. To all of you, for each of you, very briefly, is there one reform Congress should pursue to stop the hijacking of federal dollars for activism that is this extreme? Like in 10 seconds each. We'll start with you, Mr. Walter. One reform. What is it?

Mr. Scott WalterSPEAKER_11

Forcing greater transparency on where the federal tax dollars go, including the grantees of the grantees.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

I agree.

Mr. Mike GonzalezSPEAKER_12

That's right. Do a thorough audit of who, what these programs are, who the main implementer is in each country. This is really necessary.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you, Mr. O'Neil.

Mr. Tyler O'NeilSPEAKER_10

Stop funding groups that also lobby the federal government.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Thank you. And Mr.— I'm sorry Ambassador C.deBaca.

Mr. Luis C.deBacaSPEAKER_07

restore USAID so that it can actually do these grants and protect the integrity of these grants and release the files about Jeffrey Epstein

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

I don't have time. My time is up. But I, I would debate that with you for a long period of time, sir. With that, that concludes today's hearing.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

I've got a UC

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

without objection.

Ranking Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX)SPEAKER_00

" Okay IRS says churches can now endorse political candidates." And for the record, churches are 501s most of the time.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

I'm not going to comment. I have feelings on that too.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

Mr. Chairman, I've got one too, if that's all right.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Yes, Ranking Member.

Full Committee Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-MD)SPEAKER_03

This is Publix heiress-backed January 6th group spent $180,000 on the rally.

Chairman Jefferson Van Drew (R-NJ)SPEAKER_04

Without objection. That concludes today's hearing. We thank our witnesses for appearing before this subcommittee today. We really do mean it. Time is treasure. We Without objection, all members will have 5 legislative days to submit additional written questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. Without objection, this hearing is adjourned.