Hawaii’s hard-Left Democratic senator Brian Schatz, ever-eager to join the chorus of anti-Israel activists and the &#8220;horseshoe&#8221; Right in vilifying the Jewish state, found himself in the crosshairs of reality this week after peddling a blatant falsehood regarding President Trump’s leadership.
Following the decisive U.S. and Israeli strikes on the Iranian regime’s nuclear infrastructure — an operation necessitated by the regime’s own admission that they were a week away from a bomb — Schatz took to X to suggest the American Commander-in-Chief was MIA. “Why is the Prime Minister of Israel going on TV to explain this war and not the President of the United States?” Schatz demanded.
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Why is the Prime Minister of Israel going on TV to explain this war and not the President of the United States?
&mdash; Brian Schatz (@brianschatz) <a href="https://twitter.com/brianschatz/status/2028643018757038174?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The only problem? It was a complete fabrication. Schatz was immediately taken to task by observers who pointed out that President Trump had already addressed the nation, providing the very clarity Schatz claimed was missing.
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Trump literally did this morning.
So did Hegseth.
So did Vance.
So did Rubio.
Such a pathetic attempt here.
&mdash; Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) <a href="https://twitter.com/EYakoby/status/2028660035711091082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The administration did explain this, including the president himself . 
PM Netanyahu did not give an address to the nation, He simply gave an interview to Shawn Hannity, as he frequently does. 
Go touch some grass dear.
&mdash; Lola (@Lola90408) <a href="https://twitter.com/Lola90408/status/2028773722828509230?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2026</a></blockquote>
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The Senator’s attempt to frame the conflict as being driven solely by Jerusalem, rather than a joint effort to neutralize an existential threat, was a transparent play to the radical base of the Democratic Party and the horseshoe Right.
Schatz’s dishonesty on social media follows a pattern of hysterical opposition to the administration’s foreign policy. He quickly labeled the strike a “war of choice” and a “mistake,” clinging to the failed Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) as if a piece of paper would stop a regime that Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxoVFhzMn4A">revealed</a> was &#8220;proud&#8221; of evading oversight to build 11 nuclear bombs. “Had President Trump stuck to negotiations or not exited the JCPOA, this could have been avoided,” he hyperventilated.
This is the same senator who recently likened the administration’s actions against Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to the Iraq War, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEnufJ0T7t0&amp;t=2s">calling</a> the incursion a “fantasy” and a “dumb war.” Ironically, considering the mission was a huge success, he concluded, “We all know how this is likely to end, and it will not be good for us.”
Schatz has even gone so far as to <a href="applewebdata://823629BC-F5DC-4E69-984C-885F0E79D6F2/attacked">accuse</a> the President of “making people poorer on purpose,” bizarrely claiming Trump was more focused on a “$300 million ballroom” than the cost of living.
Whether it’s the economy or national security, Schatz seems less interested in the facts and more interested in a &#8220;peace at any price&#8221; narrative — even if that price is a nuclear-armed Iran.

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The chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation, a federal agency affiliated with USAID, will plead guilty to steering grants and contracts in exchange for bribes.
The previously-obscure African Development Foundation became a darling of the Left when its CFO, Mathieu Zahui, locked its doors to prevent Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from entering. Democrat <a href="https://x.com/SenBrianSchatz/status/1898391541594419261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1898391541594419261%7Ctwgr%5Eb36e7fac996898f9c03eceb09da0e0874f916802%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&amp;ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.dailywire.com%2Fnews%2Fthis-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener">politicians</a> framed it as an act of moral courage, and left-wing media called the group &#8220;the little agency that could.&#8221;
But on Friday, the Department of Justice said Zahui admitted that he was doing exactly what conservatives have suspected is common in foreign aid: Laundering money through poor nations and then back to D.C. insiders, who used it to enrich themselves.
According to <a href="https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.288886/gov.uscourts.dcd.288886.1.0_1.pdf">court papers</a> filed Friday, the African Development Foundation sent $800,000 to a Kenya-based company run by Zahui&#8217;s friend. The friend paid Zahui a kickback of $12,000, and the company kept $134,886 for doing no work.
The rest of the money was simply a &#8220;pass-through&#8221; where the Kenyan company paid bills that the agency owed to other people. That made it appear that more money was going to African aid as opposed to bureaucratic overhead, and added a layer that concealed where the agency&#8217;s money was actually going.
&#8220;For example, when USADF needed to pay a past-due debt to a staffing vendor, Zahui directed the vendor to invoice Company-1 instead of USADF. Company-1 then invoiced USADF for the vendor’s past-due amount, but added a mark-up of over $20,000 to the amount owed. Zahui approved Company-1’s invoice even though he knew that Company-1 had provided no services related to the vendor’s work,&#8221; federal prosecutors in the office of U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said.
Zahui has agreed to plead guilty to accepting gratuities and making a false statement to a federal law enforcement officer, after he lied to the USAID Office of Inspector General about having received the kickbacks. He could face up to seven years in prison.
“The USADF Director of Financial Management’s fraudulent acts betrayed the trust of the American people,” the USAID Office of Inspector General&#8217;s acting Assistant Inspector General for Investigations Sean M. Bottary said in a statement.
<h3>&#8220;When they show up, we didn&#8217;t let them in&#8221;</h3>
The Daily Wire broke the story of Zahui&#8217;s crimes in May after uncovering a search warrant for Zahui&#8217;s phone, granted by a D.C. judge in November 2024, during the Biden administration. The series, titled, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This Foreign Aid Agency Locked Its Doors To Keep DOGE Out. Now We Know Why.</a> included details that are redacted in charging papers, which refer to the company only as &#8220;Co-Conspirator 1.&#8221;
Zahui steered contracts and grants to a firm called Ganiam, which was run by a friend named Maina Gakure. Gakure and Zahui previously worked together for the Department of Veterans Affairs in California, where Gakure was in charge of contracts. Gakure later created his own company designed to exploit the government&#8217;s &#8220;8(a)&#8221; law, which allows minority-owned companies to get <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/alaska-republicans-secretly-working-to-protect-fraud-plagued-dei-program?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Alaska+Republicans+Secretly+Working+To+Protect+Fraud-Plagued+DEI+Program" target="_blank" rel="noopener">no-bid contracts</a>.
He also established an Africa-based version of the company, to which Zahui steered money. (One of the contracts was ostensibly for &#8220;travel&#8221; during COVID, when travel was shut down.) Each time Zahui awarded Gakure&#8217;s company a contract, Gakure would send Zahui kickbacks to his personal bank account, the disgraced CFO admitted in federal court.
The flow of money to Africa made it seem — to Congress, the public, and auditors — that the agency was fulfilling its mission. But Ganiam was actually used as a slush fund, with Gakure serving as an intermediary to pay bills elsewhere — including in D.C.
The Daily Wire interviewed Zahui at his home for nearly two hours in May, where the African immigrant spoke with indignation that his federal job might be ending.
&#8220;When they show up, we didn&#8217;t let them in,&#8221; he said of DOGE auditors. Eventually, the Trump administration changed the locks on the building, but Zahui gained access. &#8220;They forget, or they didn&#8217;t know there was a back door that they didn&#8217;t lock,&#8221; he said.
Zahui said that the agency had money scattered in bank accounts across Africa, and that he would frequently travel to tend to it. Some money that appeared on balance sheets as being sent to Africa was later redirected back to D.C., he acknowledged, saying, &#8220;a grant can pay for people, even if it&#8217;s not in Africa.&#8221;
&#8220;Ganiam was not a grant, it was a contract,&#8221; he said, before later acknowledging that Ganiam also received a grant. When asked how he knew Gakure, he said, &#8220;He was in D.C., it was bid, it was in the U.S. Then he returned home as a [sic] Africa diaspora, returning home, that&#8217;s it.&#8221;
&#8220;He has moved a long time ago. Very, very long time ago, okay, even before COVID,&#8221; he added. (Gakure&#8217;s Virginia-based minority contracting company received a COVID bailout from the federal government.) Zahui was hired as the CFO of a federal agency even though he declared personal bankruptcy, a fact he first denied, then admitted in the interview.
Gakure did not return a request for comment in May.
Sen. James Risch (R-ID), the chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had for years documented serious irregularities at the African Development Foundation and pleaded for officials to reform the agency, saying that if they did not clean house, it risked the public losing faith in foreign aid more broadly. They failed to heed his warning, and his prediction came to pass, with the Trump administration abolishing USAID, the larger foreign aid agency, outright.
“This is a tremendous win for law and order,&#8221; Risch told The Daily Wire of Zahui&#8217;s guilty plea.
&#8220;What started in 2023 as a simple inquiry from my committee into questionable dealings at USADF will now become justice served,&#8221; he told The Daily Wire. &#8220;Corruption like we have seen at the USADF will not stand.&#8221; Risch has introduced a bill to abolish the agency.
<h3>Lawfare</h3>
After Trump&#8217;s election, the agency&#8217;s CEO, Travis Adkins, quit, leaving Zahui in charge as part of a three-person executive committee. President Donald Trump fired the board and named Pete Marocco, who oversaw the demolition of USAID, as chairman of the African Development Foundation.
But Zahui notified the White House that the federal agency would not be recognizing the Trump administration&#8217;s authority.
Remarkably, even after the Biden-era criminal investigation into Zahui was revealed by The Daily Wire, left-wing lawyers used the D.C. courts to ensure that Zahui remained in charge.
In June, a judge <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/d-c-judge-sides-with-trump-in-lawsuit-over-control-of-corrupt-foreign-aid-agency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">tossed out</a> a lawsuit filed by an ousted board member, finding that Trump had the right to fire the board. Lawyers from the same left-wing firm, Democracy Forward, then filed suit with a different plaintiff: a for-profit company in Zambia that said the U.S. government is its only customer.
The lawyers argued that abolishing ADF would be unfair to the company. In July, a judge ruled in their favor, imposing an<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/judge-orders-foreign-aid-agency-resurrected-after-african-company-sues" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> injunction</a> that blocked Marocco from controlling the agency. Zahui was brought <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-suspected-of-bribery-is-back-at-work-after-court-ruling" target="_blank" rel="noopener">back to work</a> as part of the three-person executive committee.
Because of a Supreme Court ruling limiting the breadth of injunctions, the ruling was later modified to only require that the specific Zambian firm, Rural Development Innovations Ltd., be paid, with Marocco free to otherwise axe the agency. This month, the Democracy Forward lawyers have been pleading with the judge that the ADF staff must be restored to work, so that the Zambian firm can call them for advice.
On Monday, the Trump administration filed court papers in that lawsuit saying that the Democracy Forward lawyers are seeking to &#8220;restore all 353 grants and forty-three contracts that Marocco cancelled as acting chair and rehire all sixteen employees that Marocco terminated.&#8221;
In December, a law firm run by a founder of Democracy Forward <a href="https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72053925/adkins-v-daily-wire-llc/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">sued The Daily Wire</a> and one of its alleged sources. The plaintiff is Adkins, who quit as the agency&#8217;s CEO after Donald Trump&#8217;s election. The lawsuit was leaked to The Daily Beast, which ran with the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/federal-official-says-doge-and-maga-shattered-his-life-in-new-lawsuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">headline</a>, &#8220;Federal Official Shows How DOGE and MAGA Shattered His Life In New Lawsuit.&#8221;
Though Adkins voluntarily quit before the Daily Wire stories, Adkins is seeking money, citing damages that he has not found a job willing to pay him $500,000 a year as he expected.
An email, provided by Adkins&#8217; attorneys, shows that after Zahui directed Gakure to wire $17,000 to Adkins&#8217; personal assistant, Adkins replied, &#8220;Thanks for this Mathieu &#8211; let us know what needs to be done next to fully resolve this matter.&#8221;
The alleged Daily Wire source being sued by Adkins is a black former ADF staffer who filed a sworn affidavit saying Adkins told her he “wanted all of his direct reports to be Black.” Atkins denies the allegations.
The agency&#8217;s onetime general counsel, Mateo Dunne, was placed on leave by Adkins after Dunne pointed out rampant misconduct.
“As General Counsel, I led an internal investigation that revealed substantial fraud, waste, and abuse. When I reported my findings, the agency retaliated and sought to destroy my career and reputation. Today I am fully vindicated. This is an indictment of an agency culture that facilitated corruption, punished integrity, and silenced dissent,” Dunne said.
A federal official familiar with ongoing investigations into USADF said USAID IG’s investigation said that &#8220;this case is the tip of the iceberg,&#8221; citing “corruption at the highest level in an agency entrusted to support impoverished communities in Africa.&#8221;
Marocco, who was put in charge of the ADF, told The Daily Wire that the agency &#8220;is a scam that delivers no value to the American taxpayer, and its budget should be zero.”
“We are investigating many alarming behaviors that demonstrate the agency’s defiance of the President, disregard for the taxpayers, arrogance and entitlement by bureaucrats and foreigners with no semblance of accountability, ridiculous waste, systemic abuse and crime,&#8221; Marocco said.
“USADF should be abolished, and there must be a post-mortem on this degenerate enterprise that operated under the guise of government ‘philanthropy,’” he said.
Though USAID has been abolished, its inspector general, which specializes in rooting out fraud in foreign grants, has 350 open investigations. Congress voted to give it purview over foreign aid disbursed by the State Department and other agencies.
UPDATE: Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) said &#8220;When USADF blocked DOGE from accessing their building last year, Democrats applauded. Now we know it is because USADF was hiding bribes, kickbacks, and fraud. I have filed the Terminate Unaccountable Spending, Abuse, Deception, and Fraud (USADF) Act to defund these crooks.&#8221;
House Committee on Foreign Affairs Chairman Brian Mast (R-FL) said “For years Democrats labeled programs as aid and development, but it was really just fraud, grift, and as pure waste of American tax dollars. The Director of Financial Management for USADF, Mathieu Zahui’s guilty plea is just the tip of the iceberg.”
READ MORE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/this-foreign-aid-agency-locked-its-doors-to-keep-doge-out-now-we-know-why" target="_blank" rel="noopener">This Foreign Aid Agency Locked Its Doors To Keep DOGE Out. Now We Know Why.</a>

Mathieu Zahui, chief financial officer of the African Development Foundation

Top Official Of USAID-Linked Foreign Aid Agency To Plead Guilty To Taking Bribes

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Hawaii Democrat Senator Brian Schatz used the horrific fire that consumed the city of Lahaina and <a href="https://www.staradvertiser.com/2023/08/21/breaking-news/search-and-relief-efforts-continue-as-maui-prepares-for-biden-visit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">killed at least 115 people</a> to blame the tragedy on climate change, declaring that the entire planet was at risk of “severe weather.”
Schatz spoke on Monday with CNN’s John Berman, who asked, “What do you think the most important specific lessons are that can be learned from this to make sure a tragedy of this level does not happen again?”
“Well, I think we all have to understand that severe weather events are going to get more frequent and more severe,” Schatz answered. “Hawaii is a place that has experienced volcanic eruptions and tsunamis and hurricanes and tropical storms. And we&#8217;ve had a few wildfires but nothing that threatened a whole city &#8212; nothing that flattened a whole city.”
“And I just think this is the new normal for not just the State of Hawaii, but for the whole planet &#8212; for the whole country,” he hyperbolized. “So, you know, as we contend with increasing severe weather all the time, we&#8217;re not only going to need to take action on climate. We actually need to be prepared in terms of our emergency response at the state, local, and federal levels for the kind of disaster that maybe you hadn&#8217;t contemplated before.”
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Hawaii Sen. <a href="https://twitter.com/brianschatz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@brianschatz</a> on the man-made Maui wildfire: “This is the new normal for … the whole planet” <a href="https://t.co/FP7XeODyTz">pic.twitter.com/FP7XeODyTz</a>
&mdash; Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1693653803478786469?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 21, 2023</a></blockquote>
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Despite Schatz’s focus on climate change, some experts <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-investigators-dispatched-maui-determine-exact-cause-catastroph-rcna100542" target="_blank" rel="noopener">believe</a> the cause of the Maui fire was high winds that downed power lines. Some victims of the fire launched a lawsuit targeting Hawaiian Electric, saying its equipment was not resilient enough in the face of the heavy winds and the utility did not shut down power after a warning of high winds had been announced.
Berman asked about the mayor of Maui’s statement that 850 on Maui were still unaccounted for, asking if it was possible 850 deceased people were still unidentified.
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“I don&#8217;t want to speculate,” Schatz answered. “There is a process that we are going through FEMA-led with cadaver dogs to go through every single structure in Lahaina town, and wherever else there was damage. And obviously, we have between 110 and 120 confirmed deceased. And then there&#8217;s a process of identifying via DNA sample, the identity of the deceased. But we&#8217;re just not done with the process yet. We are hoping that many of the missing simply haven&#8217;t checked in and lacked telecommunications. But we just don&#8217;t know.”

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‘New Normal … For The Entire Planet’: Hawaii Dem Senator Blames Climate Change For Tragic Maui Fire

Hawaii Dem Senator Blames Climate Change For Tragic Maui Fire

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Dem Senator Shredded After Falsely Claiming Trump Remained Silent On Iran Strike

Top Official Of USAID-Linked Foreign Aid Agency To Plead Guilty To Taking Bribes

‘New Normal … For The Entire Planet’: Hawaii Dem Senator Blames Climate Change For Tragic Maui Fire