Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), threatened to make criminal referrals during a foreign aid hearing on Wednesday.
“This committee, based on this hearing and witness testimony, will consider recommending investigations and criminal referrals,” Greene stated at the outset of her questions.
The remark came after several witnesses gave opening statements, including one who accused USAID of supporting terrorists, lacking proper oversight, and engaging in “potentially criminal” activity.
“This committee should take action to ensure that the Department of Justice acts on it and does everything [in] Congress’s power to not only investigate but refer criminal actions to the proper authorities,” said witness Gregg Roman, executive director of the Middle East Forum, in his opening statement.
Greene did not specify who the committee would investigate or refer to. The congresswoman, on the other hand, spent much of her testimony at the hearing expressing her concerns about how foreign aid was being spent and accusing USAID of being run by Democrats.
“The Democrat-run USAID should not get to use our federal government, our US taxpayer dollars, as their party piggy bank to push their radical agenda in countries that we have no business giving money to,” Greene said at the beginning of her address.
“Perhaps we should look into whether USAID funding has returned to Democratic campaigns. Has it had an impact on the elections?” she asked later.
Greene suggested during the hearing that President Biden used USAID to protect his son, Hunter Biden, by calling for the removal of Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Viktor Shokin, while serving in the Obama administration.
Greene repeated a common GOP talking point: Biden threatened to withhold $1 billion from a USAID grant if Shokin was not fired, claiming the then-vice president did so because the prosecutor was looking into Ukrainian energy company Burisma, on whose board Hunter Biden served.
“Is USAID supposed to be used as leverage by a president to protect his son?” Greene questioned witness Max Primorac, a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation.
“No, we call that corruption,” Primorac said.
While Biden threatened to withhold US aid if Shokin was not fired, Shokin was no longer investigating Burisma, and the international community had agreed on a push to remove the prosecutor on corruption charges.
During her closing remarks, Greene raised the possibility of criminal referrals.
“What we have heard today is that USAID has been used as a tool by Democrats to brainwash the world with globalist propaganda to force regime changes around the world,” according to Greene.
“But if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans,” he said, “then this committee will be making criminal referrals.”
Democrats have condemned the USAID cuts, claiming that they will reverse global progress.
