Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., presides over a House Oversight DOGE subcommittee hearing in the U.S. Capitol on Feb. 26, 2025. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
"Is USAID supposed to be used as leverage by a president to protect his son?" she asked.
Primorac responded, "No, we call that corruption."
"In your estimation, roughly what percentage of USAID funding is doled out to bad actors or to efforts that don't have the best interests of Americans in mind?" Greene added.
Primorac said it was discovered through the work of the House Foreign Affairs Committee that USAID has been paying out over 50% to overhead charges and the inspector general of USAID "criticized the agency for not knowing the overhead charges being handed out to all of these actors for $142 billion of disbursements."
"That is extremely troubling," he added.
Another witness, Middle East Forum Executive Director Gregg Roman, said in his opening statement that he was there to testify "because there’s a fox loose in the henhouse of our foreign aid system – a system intended to uplift lives abroad that instead has funneled millions of taxpayer dollars to radical and terrorist-linked organizations."
U.S. Capitol Police arrest protesters staging a die-in inside the rotunda of the Cannon House Office Building as part of a protest against cuts to foreign aid, in Washington, D.C. on Feb. 26, 2025. (Nathan Posner/Anadolu via Getty Images)
The chairwoman said that the "Democrat-run USAID should not get to use our federal government – our U.S. taxpayer dollars – as their party piggy bank to push their radical agenda in countries that we have no business giving money to."
Greene said 95% of all political contributions from USAID employees go to Democratic Party candidates or PACs.
"The revolving door between USAID employees and NGOs that receive USAID funding is undeniable. Maybe we should consider investigating whether USAID funding has made it back to Democrat campaigns?" she later asked.
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In her closing remarks, Greene again posed bringing criminal referrals in connection to USAID funding.
"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," she said. "But if USAID funded terrorism that resulted in the death of Americans," Greene added, "then this committee will be making criminal referrals."
Committee Democrats spent the hearing arguing that the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID was illegal, and is "reordering the global stage" to favor foreign adversaries and "undermining global democracy."
Danielle Wallace is a breaking news and politics reporter at Fox News Digital. Story tips can be sent to danielle.wallace@fox.com and on X: @danimwallace.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-doge-subcommittee-chair-greene-threatens-criminal-referrals-over-foreign-aid-spending