A senior official at the Department of Veteran Affairs pushed one of the largest healthcare companies in the country to improve its &#8220;diversity profile&#8221; while accepting thousands of dollars in poker chips and lavish gift cards from minority business executives, federal investigators say.
John Windom, a 64-year-old Navy veteran, was tasked with spearheading a billion-dollar revamp of the VA&#8217;s electronic health records system. He used that perch to steer business to his lover and rake in thousands of dollars worth of luxury gifts and push government contractors to embrace DEI, according to federal prosecutors. 
Windom, who is black, is accused of forming a self-described &#8220;Power Group&#8221; composed of executives from minority-owned businesses that allegedly sent him expensive gifts while some earned federal DEI contracts. These unreported gifts included $8,200 in Louis Vuitton gift cards, $2,000 in cash, a $631 HEPA filter, concert tickets, and $3,800 in casino chips, according to an indictment. 
Members of the Power Group were left anonymous in federal charging documents though one was described as a &#8220;romantic partner&#8221; of Windom. Some of the contracts with Power Group companies were related to the VA electronic record project, though not all were. 
Dr. Kurt Miceli, the chief medical officer of Do No Harm, told The Daily Wire that the case showed the danger of implementing DEI initiatives at the federal level. 

“Diversity initiatives in federal contracting elevate race, gender, or other demographic traits over merit and proven capability when awarding taxpayer‑funded work,&#8221; he said. &#8220;The result: set-asides and preferences that explicitly discriminate based on identity rather than awarding projects through competitive bidding and qualifications.&#8221;
Windom was, until recently, the executive director of the Office of Electronic Health Record Modernization at the VA. In August 2017, he was tasked with bringing the department&#8217;s records system — part of the VA&#8217;s notoriously broken healthcare system — up to par with the rest of the federal government.
Prior to his involvement with VA, Windom <a href="https://www.congress.gov/116/meeting/house/110555/witnesses/HHRG-116-AP18-Bio-WindomJ-20200227.pdf">rose</a> to the rank of captain in the Navy, where he mostly held HR-related management positions involving training personnel and overseeing the Pentagon&#8217;s electronic health record system overhaul. He retired from the Navy in 2017 to take the position with the VA.
Two years into leading the electronic records project, Windom allegedly created a “Power Group” of seven executives and employees from minority-owned businesses that contracted with VA. These executives gave Windom a variety of kickbacks while he worked to get them access to federal benefits, federal investigators said. One of the individuals, identified only as &#8220;Person 4,&#8221; was in a romantic relationship with Windom from August 2016 to December 2018. 
In communications with these executives, Windom reminded them that “loose lips sink ships,” asked one for concert tickets, and told another one to “get the f**k off this ride,” if the arrangement was making them uncomfortable, according to messages included in the indictment. 
“As alleged, the defendant exploited his senior position for personal gain and concealed gifts and financial relationships that created serious conflicts of interest in the health care of our nation’s veterans,” said U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro. “Such conduct is not only a betrayal of the public trust — it undermines confidence in the institutions dedicated to serving those who have sacrificed for this country.”
<div id="attachment_1074327" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1074327" class="size-full wp-image-1074327" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2259627360.jpg" alt="Jeanine Pirro, US attorney for the District of Columbia, speaks during a news conference at the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington, DC, US, on Friday, Feb. 6, 2026. A man suspected of being responsible for the deadly 2012 attack against the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya, is in US custody, FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday." width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2259627360.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2259627360-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2259627360-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2259627360-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Jeanine Pirro (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)</div>
Windom has been charged with concealment of material facts, false statements, and falsification of a record. His first court appearance is set for April 14. 
The <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/media/1432916/dl?inline">charges</a> come as the Trump administration moves to crack down on DEI practices among federal contractors. President Donald Trump signed an executive order last week <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/addressing-dei-discrimination-by-federal-contractors/">directing</a> that contractors not engage in &#8220;any racially discriminatory DEI activities” for federal government work. 
In June 2017, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin announced that his department would adopt the same electronic health record standards as the Pentagon. Since that time the program has been plagued with problems, including ballooning costs and patient deaths. The program, which has been paused the last few years, is set to start up again this month. 
A few months after the project was announced, Windom was placed in charge. He directed $10 billion to be allocated to the company Cerner, which has since been acquired by Oracle, for the project. At the time, the contract was one of the biggest information technology contracts for the federal government. 
Soon after, investigators say he created the Power Group of minority business executives and employees. 
“Between August 2017 and June 2021, in multiple locations, Defendant WINDOM attended events with other Power Group members and routinely accepted personal benefits such as gifts, meals, alcohol, entertainment, and other services from members of the Power Group,” the indictment says. 
These events took place at restaurants and bars in and around the MGM National Harbor casino, as he used his position to “coerce” improper personal benefits, investigators said. He would routinely &#8220;demand&#8221; poker chips for games at the casino, the indictment alleges. 

<div id="attachment_1074335" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1074335" class="size-full wp-image-1074335" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-1055654346.jpg" alt="OXON HILL,MD-NOV30: The first anniversary of the MGM Casino at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, November 30, 2017. (" width="1024" height="683" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-1055654346.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-1055654346-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-1055654346-864x576.jpg 864w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-1055654346-768x512.jpg 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />(Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post via Getty Images)</div>
In November 2019, Windom asked for concert tickets for himself and another member of the Power Group from one of the business leaders, according to text messages.
“Damn near sitting on the stage,&#8221; he wrote the day of the concert. &#8220;You da man.&#8221;
These benefits were hidden from VA officials and the Office of Government Ethics, according to investigators. 
At the same time, Windom used his position “to encourage, monitor, and facilitate contracting and subcontracting opportunities for members of the Power Group,” both connected and not connected to the electronic health record project, the indictment said. 
While pushing for personal benefits from members of the Power Group, Windom allegedly pressured them “to make business decisions unrelated to” the electronic records project that “advanced” his “diversity objectives” before he “demanded to be rewarded.” 
He also “threatened economic and reputational harm to members of the Power Group, particularly but not only when they were not meeting his diversity-related networking expectations,” according to the indictment. 
In July 2018, Cerner entered into a diversity contract with Windom&#8217;s romantic partner as the lead after he “demanded” that it “improve its diversity profile and inclusion efforts,” the indictment said. Around that time, Cerner started increasing its DEI efforts and it released a DEI report in 2019 <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20220411175937/https://www.cerner.com/-/media/cerner-media-united-states/pdf-downloads/cerner-hr-diversity-report-2019.pdf?vs=1&amp;hash=B80E8A916E1B68223F4AE46D6AA8CBDE701E80BD">showing</a> how the company took steps to &#8220;expand&#8221; on &#8220;diversity and inclusion efforts.&#8221;
In 2019, Windom allegedly worked to “pressure” a Power Group member “to complete diversity contract renewal negotiations with Cerner.”
Miceli said pushing DEI in contracting led to the most &#8220;qualified contractors&#8221; being sidelined and was particularly concerning when done in the healthcare realm. 
&#8220;When pushed aggressively at the federal level, DEI policies erode public trust, foster resentment, and violate core principles of equal treatment under the law, while inviting legal challenges and wasteful litigation that further burdens taxpayers,&#8221; he said. 
Messages included in the indictment paint a picture of Windom appearing to threaten Power Group members to stay silent about their relationship. 
In an October 11, 2017, message, Windom texted two Power Group members that one had made “a good comment to get you cut out” after that person suggested bringing another VA employee to where Windom was having drinks with a Power Group member. 
“Don’t mention to another person that you know me, interact with me or have any type of relationship with me,” he wrote on August 5, 2019.
One email included in the indictment appears to show that Windom was inadvertently announced to be in the audience of an event hosted by one of the Power Group members. 
“Weird last night. Not your fault personally but cleanup required. Can’t say I like [Person 4&#8217;s] cavalier response to these issues either. I was already exhausted but did not want to miss your event,” he wrote in an email. “The PA announcement of me let alone [Person 4] and me was ridiculous and did not kick the evening off right. I am a very discrete person as you know.”
<div id="attachment_1071187" style="width: 1197px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1071187" class="size-full wp-image-1071187" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-03-31-at-1.36.32-PM.png" alt="" width="1187" height="271" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-03-31-at-1.36.32-PM.png 1187w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-03-31-at-1.36.32-PM-300x68.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-03-31-at-1.36.32-PM-1024x234.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/Screenshot-2026-03-31-at-1.36.32-PM-768x175.png 768w" sizes=" (max-width: 1187px) 100vw, 1187px" />Indictment.</div>
In January 2020, Windom sent an email to the Power Group reminding them that “loose lips sink ships.” 
When one of the Power Group members expressed some concern about the contracting arrangement, Windom reacted angrily, according to a text message included in the indictment. 
“If you don’t like it, get off. You can get the f**k off this ride,” Windom said. 
In June and November 2021, Windom allegedly lied to federal law enforcement when they asked him if he had received any gifts from Power Group members. After being approached by investigators, Windom told Power Group members to tell law enforcement he paid for their meals, according to the indictment. 
Costs of the electronic health records project have quickly climbed from the $10 billion originally estimated. The department now estimates that costs could exceed $37 billion, while the Government Accountability Office <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2025/12/03/veterans-administration-va-hospitals-health/">said</a> costs could approach the hundreds of billions. 
Over 4,000 veterans have been harmed due to the health record modernization, which has led to four fatalities, <a href="https://fedscoop.com/va-ehr-six-cases-catastrophic-harm/">according</a> to lawmakers. The Government Accountability Office has continued to pressure the VA to take steps to speed up the rollout. 
The Daily Wire reached out to a publicly listed phone number for Windom and no lawyer has yet been listed yet in court records for his case.

MixCollage-08-Apr-2026-10-33-AM-4651

DEI, Louis Vuitton, And Casino Chips: Inside A Billion-Dollar VA Scandal

Corruption

Department of Justice

Department of Veterans Affairs

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Health Care

Democratic Maryland Governor Wes Moore is attacking his state&#8217;s largest newspaper, The Baltimore Sun, for investigating his political record and probing potential falsehoods concerning his upbringing and military service.
The Baltimore Sun is collaborating with sister television station Sinclair to scrutinize Gov. Wes Moore as he gears up for reelection and weighs a 2028 run for the White House, <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/05/2026/marylands-biggest-newspaper-is-going-after-the-governors-2028-campaign?utm_medium=media&amp;utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered1&amp;utm_source=newslettercta">Semafor reported</a>.
The investigative series, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/tag/spotlight-on-maryland/">Spotlight Maryland</a>, includes FOX45 News, WJLA in Washington, D.C., and The Baltimore Sun. These outlets will examine whether Moore exaggerated his military service and investigate the athletic scholarships he received in college.
Reporters with Spotlight Maryland have exchanged tense emails with Wes Moore&#8217;s staff, citing frustration over what they describe as a lack of transparency.
“Our news team will continue pursuing this matter until they are satisfied that there is either no story &#8211; or until further investigation shows that events did not occur as they should have,” the team wrote in one letter to Moore’s office <a href="https://www.semafor.com/article/04/05/2026/marylands-biggest-newspaper-is-going-after-the-governors-2028-campaign?utm_medium=media&amp;utm_campaign=flagshipnumbered1&amp;utm_source=newslettercta">obtained by Semafor</a>. “If our team finds the latter, they will report that. … We are also prepared to present our findings and concerns to the Secretary of the Army’s office; and if gets to that point, we fully expect it will have become a national level news story requiring the Army Secretary’s attention.”
Moore’s team has complained that the investigation is &#8220;needlessly hostile and politically motivated,&#8221; according to Semafor.
Then, the liberal governor ran to MS NOW.
&#8220;The Baltimore Sun used to be our paper of record,&#8221; Moore <a href="https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:jutl4tq6nqhumm5exzk52f5t/post/3mixau63lak2m">told former Biden White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki</a>. &#8220;It&#8217;s now become the paper of the right-wing.&#8221;
Moore complained that in 2024, media executive David Smith, the executive chairman of Sinclair Broadcast Group, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/2024/01/15/baltimore-sun-media-sold-david-d-smith/">bought the paper</a>.
&#8220;I think we&#8217;ve seen how their readership continued to decline, but it&#8217;s happened because you&#8217;ve had a MAGA billionaire who is now currying favor for the President of the United States,&#8221; Moore said.
The liberal governor added that he was &#8220;deeply proud&#8221; of his military service and claimed nobody in the U.S. Army questions his integrity.
In 2024, The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/politics/wes-moore-bronze-star.html">New York Times</a> reported that Moore falsely claimed on a 2006 White House fellowship application that he had been awarded a Bronze Star for his military service while deployed in Afghanistan.
&#8220;The soldiers I served with don&#8217;t question my integrity,&#8221; Moore said. &#8220;But we are seeing how the right wing and these right-wing billionaires like David Smith is then using his wealth to be able to manipulate local media.&#8221;
Spotlight on Maryland executive producer and managing editor <a href="https://x.com/candynotcandace/status/2041903427786068360?s=20">Candy Woodall called out</a> Democrats for &#8220;putting in a lot of work to discredit a series before it&#8217;s even started running.&#8221;
&#8220;This is standard journalism to scrutinize the words and records of elected officials and candidates who hold positions of power and public trust,&#8221; Woodall said. &#8220;If you want to know more, keep reading The Baltimore Sun, a 200-year-old newspaper that has survived many governors.&#8221;

Wes Moore

Dem Presidential Hopeful Flails At Local Newspaper For Daring To Investigate His Record

Democratic Party

Elections

Journalism

Media

Politics

CBS Chief Legal Analyst Jan Crawford sharply decimated claims from the Left that the conservative-leaning Supreme Court is corrupt, describing such narratives as &#8220;patently false&#8221; and &#8220;dangerous.&#8221;
In November, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) called the Court dishonorable, telling CNN&#8217;s Wolf Blitzer: “We&#8217;re committed to driving down the high cost of living, to fixing our broken health care system and, at the same period of time, cleaning up the corruption that exists in Washington, D.C., in the Congress, at the Supreme Court and, of course, with the Trump administration, the most corrupt administration in American history.”
“I just want to be precise,” Blitzer cautioned. “You say the Supreme Court has been corrupt? Is that what you&#8217;re saying?”
“Yes, what I&#8217;m saying is that the outrageous behavior by individual justices like Clarence Thomas and Justice Alito and the failure to have an ethical code of conduct is corrupt. These are the only people in the country who can operate above the law,” Jeffries answered.
“There is a narrative that the Supreme Court is corrupt,” Crawford said on CBS News’ “Face the Nation.” “We saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade. And now we see it, that they&#8217;re ‘in the tank for Trump.’ Not only is that narrative overreported, it is patently false, and it is dangerous for the institution and the public&#8217;s faith and confidence in the rule of law.”
“This is a conservative Supreme Court,” she stated. “It has been a conservative Supreme Court for 20 years. People can disagree and do disagree with their opinions, but it&#8217;s profoundly wrong to call it – or say corruption where there, in fact, is none.”
<a class="c-link c-link--focus-visible c-link--underline" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Christmas Sale – Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
“What&#8217;s underreported is any understanding of what this court&#8217;s been doing for the past 20 years,” she explained. “Its views of its role, vis-à-vis the other branches. How it sees the law. How it&#8217;s trying, in its focus, to restore some kind of accountability and our constitutional structure. Again, this is a court that is functional. It is consistent. They are nine justices. They don&#8217;t necessarily see the Constitution the same way by any means or how to interpret federal law. There&#8217;s a struggle over the proper way to interpret the Constitution. But that is as it should be. And I think as we approach our 250th anniversary of this country, it&#8217;s important to think about the court and their rule of law as the justices are doing, especially if we hope to keep democracy intact.”
“That&#8217;s a big statement, Jan, if we hope to keep democracy intact,” host Margaret Brennan responded. “My goodness.”
Undaunted, Crawford replied, “If we lost — if the public loses confidence in the rule of law, I don&#8217;t know what that means for democracy. And that&#8217;s why I think some of the rhetoric about corruption is so, so profoundly irresponsible.&#8221;
“And it causes threats,” CBS News correspondent Scott MacFarlane pointed out.
“Oh, yes. Which, again, I mean the justices are under tremendous (pressure), and federal judges as well,” Crawford concluded.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
On <a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@FaceTheNation</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/JanCBS?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JanCBS</a> Crawford scolded the press corps in naming her “under-reported” story of the year: “There is a narrative the Supreme Court is corrupt. We saw that emerge in the wake of the Dobbs decision&#8230;and now we see it that they’re in the tank for Trump. Not only… <a href="https://t.co/2rPcXbEnvQ">pic.twitter.com/2rPcXbEnvQ</a>
&mdash; Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrentHBaker/status/2005408938599051421?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 28, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

The Inauguration Of Donald J. Trump As The 47th President

CBS Chief Legal Analyst Slams Left’s ‘Corrupt Supreme Court’ Narrative As ‘Patently False’

CBS News

Leftism

Supreme Court

Illinois just gained another data point for its reputation for public corruption. New revelations found that nearly 400 state employees improperly obtained federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loans intended to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic.
PPP was created as part of the CARES Act to provide federally backed, forgivable loans to small businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic. It was signed into law on March 27, 2020.
According to the Illinois Office of the Executive Inspector General, investigators found “reasonable cause” in 378 PPP-fraud cases involving state workers through June 2025 — about three-quarters of all cases reviewed, the <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/12/29/ppp-loan-fraud-illinois-cook-county/?lctg=B4845491D5F64499A4E4B513EB&amp;utm">Chicago Tribune</a> reported. More than 200 employees resigned or were fired, and some have been referred for criminal prosecution. Workers across major agencies — including Human Services, Corrections, and Children and Family Services — collectively received over $2.8 million in fraudulent loans, often using fabricated businesses or false income claims.
<a class="c-link" href="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" data-stringify-link="https://get.dailywire.com/subscribe/plus/?utm_medium=website&amp;utm_source=editorial&amp;utm_campaign=christmas&amp;utm_content=christmassale25" data-sk="tooltip_parent">Christmas Sale &#8211; Get 40% off New DailyWire+ Annual Memberships</a>
The inspector general sharply condemned the conduct, stressing that public employees are expected to protect — not exploit — taxpayer funds. One state worker claimed she misunderstood the loan as debt consolidation; another admitted paying a stranger to fabricate a fake business application. The Illinois Attorney General’s office has secured guilty pleas in several cases, typically resulting in probation, restitution, or community service — including a Human Services employee who obtained $49,000 for a nonexistent catering company.
The problem extended beyond the state government. Cook County watchdogs documented 65 PPP-related findings, most resulting in resignations or firings. The Cook County sheriff’s office reviewed 163 cases, sustaining violations against 62 employees. Chicago’s inspector general initially flagged nearly 1,000 potentially problematic loans involving city staff and has so far found nine substantiated cases, with more investigations ongoing.
These scandals unfolded against a national backdrop of widespread PPP fraud, with federal watchdogs estimating tens of billions lost and the Department of Justice charging thousands of defendants while seizing over $1.4 billion in stolen relief funds.
Illinois’ recurring ethical failures have measurable social costs. The Archbridge Institute’s Social Mobility Index ranked Illinois 40th in the nation — and the worst in the Midwest — partly due to persistent perceptions of corruption, including both illegal bribery and “legal” pay-to-play politics through campaign money and influence-trading.
“The perception of the state’s corruption is one factor that dragged it down,” Illinois Policy <a href="https://www.illinoispolicy.org/illinois-political-corruption-keeps-people-down/">reported</a>. “The social mobility index measures perceptions of corruption using the 2018 <a href="https://greasethewheels.org/cpi/">Corruption in America Survey</a>, which ranks Illinois among the most corrupt states in the country in both legal and illegal corruption – legal corruption describing a culture of pay-to-play in the form of campaign contributions made to or endorsements of a particular politician in exchange for favors or influence.”
Even as leaders stress that most public employees act honorably, the breadth of PPP fraud involving government workers reinforces Illinois’ stubborn image as one of America’s most corruption-ridden states — an image that, evidence suggests, drags down both governance and the state’s broader prospects for upward mobility.

US-POLITICS-CRIME-TROOPS-CHICAGO

Hundreds Of Illinois Public Workers Implicated In Pandemic Fraud

COVID-19

Illinois

Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)

Editor’s note: This week, we’re reprinting some of our best stories from the past year. This is the fourth and final installment Luke Rosiak&#8217;s series of investigative reports on the African Development Foundation, which gained notoriety for resisting a review by the Department of Government Efficiency. Links to the previous three parts are included throughout the piece, and below.
—
A small, USAID-like federal agency called the African Development Foundation refused to hire white people, and treated white employees who did slip through so poorly that one soiled herself because she was afraid to leave her desk to use the bathroom, employees told The Daily Wire.
The agency violated so many rules and laws that its general counsel was flabbergasted — but when he called attention to it, officials framed him for violent threats and removed him from his job with a bizarre manifesto that called him “grimy” and “unwholesome,” the general counsel, Mateo Dunne, who is white, said.
The agency attracted attention by locking the doors to prevent auditors from the Department of Government Efficiency from seeing its books, and suing Elon Musk to prevent a takeover. The lawsuit is pending, but all of its employees have been laid off after the Trump administration gained access to the office space using U.S. Marshals.
From 2021 until February, the agency was led by CEO Travis Adkins, who came to it after a short stint at USAID as a Joe Biden political appointee.
Adkins’ former assistant, who is black, said in a sworn affidavit that “On at least three occasions, Mr. Adkins told me that he wanted his entire team (to include the General Counsel) to consist only of Black people. He wanted all of his direct reports to be Black.”
“He was very adamant in only hiring African Americans, mainly female, and he told me many times he would not hire a white person or a veteran. I said that’s discrimination, and he said ‘I’m the president and CEO, I can do what I want,’” the assistant told The Daily Wire on condition of anonymity. Adkins is also a lecturer at Georgetown University.
The African Development Foundation was created by Congress in 1980 as a board whose members are appointed by the president of the United States to six-year terms, who in turn appoint a CEO to run day-to-day operations. The board chair was Jack Leslie, a white former staffer to former Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) who was appointed to the board by Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
Adkins bragged about concealing operations from the board, saying “them white motherf—ers, they don’t need to know… I don’t think I should tell them sh–,” according to the assistant.
A junior employee disappeared a few months after she took complaints to the board, and the assistant asked what happened to her; Adkins replied, “I just put the white b—h on a contract and then the contract ended,” the assistant said.
The situation was the same under the prior CEO, C.D. Glin, a former Peace Corps DEI officer and later an Obama political appointee to the Peace Corps who led the agency from 2016 to 2021. “C.D. [Glin] literally said to me that he needed to hire black people,” another employee told The Daily Wire on condition of anonymity. “Virtually everyone he hired in programs was black.”
In 2021, the agency had to pay a settlement after it laid off a white senior executive without paying her severance or following federal rules, and she alleged it was because of her race. It conducted a “reduction in force” that was targeted at her, and falsely claimed she didn’t have the qualifications to shift into another job, even though many of those jobs had actually reported to her.
After publication of this article, a representative for Adkins disputed the allegations from his former assistant that he didn’t want to hire white people. The representative characterizes Dunne’s claims about Adkins as both “self-serving” and “discredited.”
In previous installments in this series, The Daily Wire reported how its agency’s CFO received payments to his personal bank account from a company to which he steered $1 million. The agency gave money to African grantees and then instructed them to re-route it to the agency’s employees and friends in America, and even pushed a for-profit multi-level marketing scheme run by a board member on poor Africans.
<blockquote>
<h1>“I think USADF deserved the fate that it received, because if it couldn’t be run correctly, then it shouldn’t be run at all.”</h1>
</blockquote>
<h3>Retaliation</h3>
In a government agency, the job of the general counsel is to ensure that rules and laws are followed. Glin ensured that the role was either empty or filled with junior lawyers with no experience in government, even though the agency engaged in complex international finance.
After he departed as CEO in May 2021, there was a brief period in which the agency had no permanent leader, and a traditional general counsel managed to slip through. When Mateo Dunne, a white former high-level Defense Department executive, took the job, he was appalled by how little the African Development Foundation seemed to care about laws and rules.
The lawyer set out to interview employees about conflicts of interest, purchase card abuse, contracting fraud, and a toxic workplace environment. In a matter of days, the evidence started stacking up. He told the acting CEO, Elisabeth Feleke, that outside lawyers would have to be brought in to document the full scope of the lawbreaking.
Instead, Feleke ordered him to stop the investigation, told him to change the preliminary findings, and falsely told the board the probe was complete, he told The Daily Wire. Dunne stopped investigating, but sent his preliminary report to the board.
He soon learned that despite nearly uniform agreement that Glin had been abusive, the organization wasn’t getting a fresh start. The board agreed to hire a decades-long friend of Glin’s, Travis Adkins, to replace him. When Adkins entered the office for the first time, Glin enveloped him in a bear hug.
Adkins later testified under oath that he was selected to lead the African Development Foundation without even applying for the job, and that he couldn’t recall when or how he managed to be selected.
As Adkins’ start date neared, Dunne prepared to show him the lawbreaking he had found so that Adkins could reform the agency. But it seemed that Adkins already knew, and his first priority was shutting Dunne’s investigation down.
Within hours of Adkins being sworn in as president and CEO in January 2022, he put Dunne on leave and cut off his access to evidence before he could even speak, video shows.
“You will be on administrative leave the very moment that we hang up this call. You will have a box mailed to your home to allow you to send back to us any USADF-issued equipment,” he told Dunne. “You are not to contact any of the members of the USADF staff. And again, your access to all of our data and systems will be closed down immediately.”
Dunne replied: “I had prepared this slide deck to introduce myself and what I’ve done at USADF. This conversation obviously went a different way … I guess I have a couple of questions.”
“We’re not going to do questions and answers,” Adkins said. “We’re not going to have a back and forth about this.” Dunne was never told why he was placed on paid leave, which Adkins acknowledged was the first step in a discipline process.
Internally, the agency sought to build a justification for firing the white lawyer, with chief of staff Brandi James compiling a 75-page manifesto that called Dunne “Adversarial, Belittling, Calculating, Combative, Condescending, Deceitful, Defensive, Grimy, Sinister, and Unwholesome.”
The report called Dunne a “danger to USADF’s mission and staff.” But the details made clear that the risk was not to anyone’s life, but rather the livelihoods of law-breaking bureaucrats. The dossier faulted him for his “insistence on tying up staff time on investigatory digs.”
The evidence of insubordination was that he had investigated apparent spending on luxuries and personal items by top staff, when Acting CEO Elisabeth Feleke said, “I have not given Mateo direction or mandate to investigate credit card fraud.”
<blockquote>
<h1>“Them white motherf—ers, they don’t need to know… I don’t think I should tell them sh–.”</h1>
</blockquote>
As evidence of Dunne “circumventing and breaching USADF protocols,” the dossier complained that Dunne notified Glin that he had not filed years’ worth of mandatory Office of Government Ethics conflict-of-interest forms, carrying a $600 penalty, even though Feleke told him not to raise the issue. As general counsel, Dunne was the agency’s “designated ethics officer” and required to do so by the government-wide ethics office. The forms would have revealed that the African group had paid money to a group associated with Glin, and refusal to file them can carry criminal penalties.
Adkins went as far as implying that Dunne had threatened to kill him, alluding to something “being sent to people regarding the death of government officials, as all of us are government officials.” This, it turned out, was a fantastical distortion of Dunne sharing a sentimental quote from a New York governor acknowledging the passing of a former legislator.
Then a new comment appeared on the agency’s profile on the employer-review site GlassDoor that said, under “Advice to Management”: “die.” The post was attributed to “General Counsel.” The African Development Foundation sicced four different law enforcement agencies on Dunne for making death threats.
The former Sunday school-teaching lawyer said he was framed. “If I was going to do an anonymous post I would obviously not put my job title in there,” he said.
Adkins was forthright with the board’s chair, Jack Leslie, about what was really going on. He wrote to Leslie that Dunne was placed on leave for his “efforts to damage USADF’s reputation via the Office of Inspector General…Dunne conducted an unauthorized, backward-focused investigation that unsettled staff. … He then began leveling accusations that USADF senior leadership was ‘interfering’ with his investigations and General Counsel functions.”
<h3>Lies </h3>
The African Development Foundation never told Dunne what he was being investigated for, or formally moved to fire him, which would require proving that he did something wrong. It simply left him on paid leave indefinitely, violating a <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/5/6329b" target="_blank" rel="noopener">law</a> that limits investigative leave to 90 days. After six months, in July 2022, he quit to take another job.
An agency’s top lawyer calling attention to rampant lawbreaking, only for him to be removed from duty, is as remarkable a case of whistleblower retaliation as the government has seen. Dunne provided documentation to the Office of Special Counsel, which exists to investigate whistleblower retaliation. But it closed his file when the employee he’d been working with left her job, he said.
He filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging discrimination on the basis of his race and retaliation. In August 2024, an administrative law judge dismissed his case, even though he had an affidavit from a black employee saying that Adkins had told her repeatedly that he did not want any white people working for him. Dunne is appealing in court.
Dunne deposed African Development Foundation staff in the course of that lawsuit. In his sworn testimony, Adkins denied saying he wouldn’t hire white people — but also claimed he didn’t know how many people worked for him, that he could only remember the names of two, and that he didn’t know what race various employees were.
<div id="attachment_918261" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-918261" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-736x576.jpg" sizes=" (max-width: 736px) 100vw, 736px" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-736x576.jpg 736w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-300x235.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep-768x601.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/adkins-dep.jpg 1184w" alt="" width="736" height="576" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-918261" />
A typical exchange from Adkins’ deposition
</div>
Adkins’ sworn testimony was repeatedly contradicted by documents and the testimony of other employees.
Adkins had told the board that a government-wide human resource office had “recommended Mr. Dunne immediately be placed on Administrative Leave for misconduct and performance.” A representative of that office testified that it was not true.
He denied plotting to remove Dunne as general counsel before he even started as CEO in an effort to spare his friend Glin and officials like Mathieu Zahui, the chief financial officer, and a target of the investigation.
But discovery in the lawsuit showed that Zahui had written during that time period that “The board and the incoming president would like to explore the possibilities of a do-over” on the general counsel hire.
Adkins did not return a request for comment from The Daily Wire.
Dunne said it has been painful to watch some turn the African Development Foundation into a “martyr,” seemingly to avoid acknowledging that DOGE’s scrutiny was warranted, when no one cared to fix it, though signs were abundant that it was broken.
He said he left his job at the Defense Department to come to the African agency “because I wanted to help people,” but found that widespread rule-breaking was short-changing both Africans and low-level staff.
“I think USADF deserved the fate that it received, because if it couldn’t be run correctly, then it shouldn’t be run at all. If the leaders of that agency couldn’t act, and members of the foreign policy establishment wouldn’t act,” he said. “It’s an indictment of the entire system.”
Editor’s note: This piece has been updated with information sent after publication by a representative from Travis Adkins, who refutes claims about his spending and says that Mateo Dunne’s claims about him are “self-serving” and “discredited.”
READ MORE:
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-who-resisted-doge-took-secret-payments-after-steering-africa-money-to-friend?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Foreign+Aid+Official+Who+Resisted+DOGE+Took+Secret+Payments+After+Steering+Africa+Money+To+Friend%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Foreign Aid Official Who Resisted DOGE Took Secret Payments After Steering Africa Money To Friend</a> </li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/african-aid-agency-used-foreign-pass-throughs-to-hide-money-that-went-to-d-c-staff-friends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African Aid Agency Used Foreign Pass-Throughs To Hide Money That Went To D.C. Staff</a></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li aria-level="1"><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/aid-agency-pushed-officials-for-profit-pyramid-scheme-on-poor-africans?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Aid+Agency+Pushed+Official%E2%80%99s+For-Profit+Pyramid+Scheme+On+Poor+Africans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Aid Agency Pushed Official’s For-Profit Pyramid Scheme On Poor Africans</a></li>
</ul>

Untitled design (95)

Best Of 2025: Racist Agency Framed Its Lawyer After He Discovered Lawbreaking, He Says

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)

When it comes to immigration enforcement by the Trump administration, especially for people living in the Midwest, there’s been one decision that’s stood out. And it’s clearly been a deliberate decision, for whatever reason. For the most part, the government has left illegal alien Muslim populations alone, in places like Dearborn, Michigan, and Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Admittedly, there’s not much hard data on this. But intuitively, you can tell. You can go online and find hundreds of videos of ICE raids in Los Angeles or Texas. But you won’t find many videos coming from Little Mogadishu, which, by some conservative estimates, is home to tens of thousands of illegal aliens. And there’s another way to tell that immigration enforcement has been soft in these areas: They haven’t been rioting. They haven’t been surrounding ICE agents chanting, “Allahu Akbar,” like they’re re-enacting “Black Hawk Down.” Instead, Muslims in these communities have mostly been targeting white conservative activists and journalists, who dare to venture into the no-go zone that they’ve established. They’re not afraid of immigration enforcement. They’re emboldened, like conquerors.
Whatever the administration’s strategy has been here, it does appear to be changing, at least to an extent. Last week, as you may remember, I called for hate crimes charges to be brought against a man who punched a white conservative activist in Dearborn. Within hours, Harmeet Dhillon, who runs the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division, said she would begin an investigation. Then, shortly after that, the president announced a major change — one that we’ve been calling for, again and again, for several months. He ended “temporary protected status” for Somalis in the United States.
This is a designation that’s been in place for more than three decades. It shields Somalis, in many cases, from being deported back to Somalia, on the theory that the country is so dysfunctional that it would be inhumane to send them back. To be clear, in most other cases, “temporary protected status” is awarded after some terrible natural disaster, like a devastating earthquake or mudslide. The idea is that we don’t want to send people back to an unstable environment like that, where everything is flooded or on fire. But in Somalia’s case, there was no devastating earthquake or mudslide or anything like that. There’s just a lot of Somalis attempting to govern themselves. And that’s been such a disaster that, for more than 30 years, it’s been the official policy of the U.S. government that we shouldn’t send Somalis back to their own country. Somali governance is equivalent to a 9.0 earthquake — it’s just as catastrophic. Essentially, we’ve said we can’t send Somalis back to Somalia because there are so many Somalis there. It would be cruel to force Somalis to live with Somalis. So instead, we should force Americans to live with them. 
Of course, the appropriate response in this scenario is to keep Somalis as far away from the United States as possible. We don’t want them establishing an enclave in this country, because inevitably, it will be just as dysfunctional as the country they fled. But for many years now, it’s been the policy of the United States to pretend otherwise — and to give Somalis yet another host country to destroy.
The fact that the Trump administration is changing this policy, after so many years, is a clear signal that they’re thinking about going into Muslim communities (particularly Somali communities) and enforcing immigration law, as well as civil rights law. This is a crackdown that’s long overdue. And it’s more urgent than ever, because at this point, law enforcement is now working on behalf of the foreign criminals in cities like Minneapolis. The leaders of major police departments are now far more worried about offending their Muslim overlords than actually enforcing the law.
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1696-the-matt-walsh-show?contentProgram=The%20Matt%20Walsh%20Show&amp;contentType=ShowEpisode&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;location=Home%20Tab&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Home%20Featured%20Carousel"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-large wp-image-976065" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg" alt="DailyWire+" width="1024" height="171" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1024x171.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-300x50.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-768x128.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1-1536x256.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/09/Matt-watch-now-1.jpg 1800w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" /></a>
Earlier, I covered how conservatives can be physically attacked by Muslims in Dearborn, right in front of the police, and the police will do nothing. But the situation is even worse in Minneapolis, where the chief of police, Brian O’Hara, just apologized to the Somali community for pointing out that they’re committing a lot of crimes. This may be the first documented case of a police chief begging for forgiveness, simply for observing the fact that crime is taking place in his city.
So <a href="https://alphanews.org/mpd-chief-cites-east-african-kids-from-out-of-town-in-ongoing-dinkytown-youth-crime-problems/">here’s what</a> Chief Brian O’Hara said, in an interview with a local radio station. This was the observation that outraged the Somali community, as reported by Alpha News.
&#8220;Chief O’Hara said in the interview, &#8216;Groups of kids, groups of East African kids that are coming from surrounding communities and not just one community, kind of all over the place,” are coming to the area armed and ready for a fight. &#8230; “They aren’t the poor kids from Minneapolis that are our residents, these are kids coming down in mommy’s Mercedes-Benz to Dinkytown.&#8221;
What he’s saying is obviously true. No one disputes that it’s accurate. Somalis, from East Africa, are invading communities in Minneapolis and committing serious crimes.
But Somalis in Minneapolis decided that this statement simply could not stand. That’s because large Somali communities in the United States are effectively a criminal enterprise, like a mafia. There’s widespread awareness in these communities about the fraud and robberies they commit. And they understand that, in order to minimize any undesired attention, they need to band together and shut down any suggestion — from anywhere — that they’re engaging in criminal activity. There’s a code of silence that they obey themselves and enforce on everyone else. After all, the easiest way to conceal a criminal enterprise is to make sure no one is allowed to talk about it.
It’s been known for a long time that Somalis operate like this. And it’s also been widely understood that politicians in Minneapolis are going along with it. The mayor, as we all know, isn’t ashamed to pander to Somalis and BLM, and so on. He’s certainly never critiqued Somalis, nor would he dream of doing so.
That said, even with this background in mind, the police chief just took things to another level. He didn’t simply pander to Somalis or turn a blind eye to their crimes. He actually went on camera and apologized for making a factually accurate statement about criminal activity in Minneapolis. Accompanied by a translator, the police chief apologized for doing his job, for informing the public about criminal activity, and for enforcing the law against Somalis. 
If any video justifies a federal takeover of law enforcement in Minneapolis, it’s this one. 
<h3>Watch:</h3>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
BREAKING: MPD Police Chief O’Hara asks for forgiveness for exposing the reality of Somali criminal activity in Minneapolis <a href="https://t.co/SFkWW2ZSXy">pic.twitter.com/SFkWW2ZSXy</a>
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) <a href="https://twitter.com/EndWokeness/status/1991678468959129940?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 21, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @EndWokeness/X.com
He says we have to be honest about what’s happening. And then in the same breath, he apologizes for being honest about what’s happening. It looks like a hostage video, because that’s exactly what it is.
After seeing this, is there anyone who seriously believes that any law enforcement official in Minnesota, from the attorney general on down, has any interest in arresting and prosecuting Somalis when they commit crimes? The guy looks absolutely petrified. And all he did was make a factually accurate statement. He didn&#8217;t even arrest anyone.
But if somehow you think law and order still exist in Minneapolis, maybe this video will be the wake-up call you need. 
This is a sheriff in Minnesota. 
<h3>Watch:</h3>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
At the 24 second mark he says, “that’s why we are different from foreigners,” referring to native, Minnesotan officers.
Read that again. He refers to the natives as the foreigners. It’s an invasion. <a href="https://t.co/BOy7SqsgfE">https://t.co/BOy7SqsgfE</a>
— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) <a href="https://twitter.com/WallStreetMav/status/1992419966575161478?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 23, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Credit: @WallStreetMav/X.com
According to the translation, the Minnesota sheriff refers to white police officers as “foreigners.” He says he’s working for Somalis and understands Somalis better than those foreign officers ever could. (Disclaimer: I have no idea how accurate the translation is. But that&#8217;s not my problem, because every single public official in the state should be speaking English.)
What’s important to understand about clips like this is that, as unacceptable as they obviously are, the actual problem is much, much worse. What these clips signify is that the Somali takeover of Minnesota is now so pervasive that they’re not even pretending to hide it anymore. If sheriffs and the chief of police are willing to pledge their allegiance to Somalia on-camera, then there’s no chance whatsoever that Somalis are actually being prosecuted for committing serious crimes. Maybe the DOJ will catch some fraudsters here and there, but the vast majority of these crimes are going completely unpunished. And everyone knows it.
But just in case there was any doubt, a few days ago, Ryan Thorpe and Chris Rufo <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/minnesota-welfare-fraud-somalia-al-shabaab?utm_source=virtuous&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=cjdaily">published an article</a> in City Journal highlighting the extent of the rampant fraud in Minneapolis. It&#8217;s so over-the-top and brazen that it almost sounds fake.
&#8220;Autism claims to Medicaid in Minnesota have skyrocketed in recent years — from $3 million in 2018 to $54 million in 2019, $77 million in 2020, $183 million 2021, $279 million in 2022, and $399 million in 2023. Meantime, the number of autism providers in the state spiked from 41 to 328 over the same period, with many in the Somali community establishing their own autism treatment centers, citing the need for “culturally appropriate programming.” By the time the fraud scheme was exposed, one in 16 Somali four-year-olds in the state had reportedly been diagnosed with autism — a rate more than triple the state average.&#8221;
Yes, claims for autism treatment in Minnesota — treatment that was mostly administered by Somalis, and which was then reimbursed by federal taxpayers — spiked from $3 million to $399 million, in the span of just five years. And this is just one of their scams. They&#8217;re scamming everything they can get their hands on, from COVID food programs to SNAP to the paycheck protection program. And we all know that, even when the DOJ catches a handful of Somalis who are involved, there&#8217;s no way to actually recover the money. The few Somalis who are eventually sentenced to prison, in all likelihood, won&#8217;t be there for very long.
(By the way, there&#8217;s also a very good, comprehensive analysis of Somali fraud in Minnesota, written by Armin Rosen in the publication &#8220;County Highway.&#8221; It&#8217;s one of the better explanations of how Minnesota officials are concealing all of this fraud.)
But the City Journal article highlights another important dimension of the story, which needs to be addressed — which is that Somalis in Minnesota are sending a lot of this stolen money back home. They&#8217;re taking the money you pay to the IRS, and they&#8217;re shipping it to Somalia. In some cases, they&#8217;re literally putting the cash in suitcases and flying it overseas. These are called &#8220;remittances.&#8221; And, as we discussed last week, millions of dollars in &#8220;remittances&#8221; are apparently <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/minnesota-welfare-fraud-somalia-al-shabaab?utm_source=virtuous&amp;utm_medium=email&amp;utm_campaign=cjdaily">going to</a> Al-Shabaab, a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda.
&#8220;The Somali fraud rings have sent huge sums in remittances, or money transfers, from Minnesota to Somalia. According to reports, an estimated 40 percent of households in Somalia get remittances from abroad. In 2023 alone, the Somali diaspora sent back $1.7 billion — more than the Somali government’s budget for that year. &#8230; Significant funds were being sent from America to Al-Shabaab networks in Somalia. Whether the money was intended for Al-Shabaab or not, they were taking a cut.&#8221;
One obvious step to address this problem — which the Trump administration should take immediately — is to raise the tax on remittances to 10,000%, at least for remittances going to Somalia. Currently, the tax is something like 1%. It&#8217;s absurdly low. And especially since we&#8217;re clearly being robbed, to the tune of billions of dollars, that needs to change. We need an emergency tax on remittances, immediately.
We also need to ramp up deportations and denaturalization proceedings. That&#8217;s going to trigger a legal battle, but it&#8217;s one we need to fight. The attorney general of Minnesota, Keith Ellison, is <a href="https://x.com/keithellison/status/1992301392225038837?s=20">already vowing</a> to take the Trump administration to court in order to keep as many Somalis in this country as possible.
&#8220;Trump’s announcement of termination of Somali TPS holders in Minnesota is legally problematic — while a president does have a lot of authority to designate and revoke TPS, he cannot legally wield that power to discriminate against an ethnic group or to target a state, like MN. This ain’t over.&#8221;
Yes, it&#8217;s &#8220;legally problematic&#8221; to end an extraordinary carve-out, which we&#8217;ve awarded to Somalis for no reason whatsoever, for more than 30 years. This is what always happens when you give any concessions or &#8220;favors&#8221; to anyone, including foreign nations. Instantaneously, it becomes an entitlement. They&#8217;ll sue you if you try to end it. Their lawyers will claim that you&#8217;ve violated the Constitution.
But if you ask Somalis themselves, ironically enough, they&#8217;ll drop the pretense. At this point, Somalis are basically daring us to deport them. This was Ilhan Omar&#8217;s <a href="https://x.com/IlhanMN/status/1992056830575435815?s=20">response</a> after Trump terminated Somalia&#8217;s temporary protected status.
&#8220;I am a citizen and so are the majority of Somalis in America. Good luck celebrating a policy change that really doesn’t have much impact on the Somalis you love to hate. We are here to stay.&#8221;
Notice she doesn&#8217;t even refer to her own people as Americans. She admits that they&#8217;re &#8220;Somalis in America.&#8221; They&#8217;re foreign invaders in our country. They&#8217;ve taken over local law enforcement. They&#8217;ve taken over the state attorney general&#8217;s office. They&#8217;re attacking conservatives in the street.
And now, the moment the Trump administration suggests that laws might actually be enforced in Little Mogadishu, they&#8217;re saying &#8220;come get us.&#8221; 
For once, we should give Ilhan Omar and her Somali countrymen exactly what they&#8217;re asking for.

Rally at the capitol to raise awareness of the human rights violations in Somalia

The Somali Takeover Of Minneapolis Is Worse Than We Thought

Ilhan Omar

Matt Walsh

Minneapolis

Minnesota

Muslims

Opinion

Police

Somalis

Welfare

Former President Joe Biden&#8217;s embattled son Hunter Biden admitted on a recent podcast that President Donald Trump is not, in fact, the next incarnation of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler — but then he claimed that was only because Hitler, unlike Trump, had a &#8220;plan.&#8221;
Biden, during an interview on the &#8220;<a href="https://youtu.be/YRfS0YrKGRc?si=XrvxnaZYKJyHn_z1&amp;t=2143">Wide Awake Podcast</a>,&#8221; claimed that Trump differed from the German dictator largely because Hitler had been driven by &#8220;ideology&#8221; — whereas he believed Trump was only driven by &#8220;corruption&#8221; and a &#8220;white nationalist&#8221; world view.
Biden began with a question — namely, how did the German people allow Hitler&#8217;s rise to power — and he suggested that the United States might be going through a similar situation.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨NEW: Hunter Biden: &#8220;I&#8217;m not saying that Donald Trump is Hitler — because Hitler had an ideology. And he had a grand plan.&#8221;
🤦‍♂️<a href="https://twitter.com/DailyCaller?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@DailyCaller</a> <a href="https://t.co/a78K2Q12Ne">pic.twitter.com/a78K2Q12Ne</a>
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/1989740465105862895?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 15, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;I’m not saying that there is a Holocaust, and by the way, I’m not saying that Donald Trump is Hitler. Because Hitler had an ideology. And he had a grand plan,&#8221; Biden claimed, adding, &#8220;Donald Trump is purely corrupt.&#8221;
&#8220;Donald Trump is a narcissistic sociopath who only cares about one thing, and that’s Donald Trump. And he is a clown in that respect,&#8221; he added, saying Trump was actually more like the &#8220;Butcher of Uganda,&#8221; Idi Amin.
Biden, who has spent most of his adult life profiting from his father&#8217;s political positions, went on to complain that President Trump&#8217;s family has continued to make money while he served as president. His comments echoed those of <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/dems-send-hunter-bidens-father-to-lecture-americans-on-trump-profiting-from-presidency">his father</a>, the former president, who made almost the same complaint days earlier.
&#8220;Has anyone noticed how much the Trump family has made while he’s been president? A reported $1.8 billion,” Biden began, his tone soft. He abruptly began shouting as he added, “Can you imagine if any other president in American history did that? Can you imagine what would happen?&#8221;
Grok provided the perfect response to the former president: &#8220;Biden’s claim overlooks his family’s multimillion-dollar deals with foreign entities during and after his VP tenure, per House investigations and bank records. Trump’s family businesses operated separately, with him donating his full presidential salary to charity—hardly equivalent profiteering.&#8221;
In addition to the fact that President Trump has donated his salary the entire time that he has been president, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/chart-shows-net-worth-us-presidents-before-after-office-1992975" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reports indicate</a> that Trump is the only president in recent history to see his net worth drop after a term or two in the Oval Office, as The Daily Wire previously reported. When Trump first took office in 2017, he had an estimated net worth of $3 billion — and when he left office in early 2021, his net worth had fallen to $2.3 billion.

Hunter Biden

Hunter Biden Admits Trump Isn’t Hitler, But It’s All Downhill From There

Hunter Biden Admits Trump Isn't Hitler, But It's All Downhill From There

Adolf Hitler

Donald Trump

Fascism

Nazi Germany

The former chief of staff to California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom was charged Wednesday in connection with a complicated scheme to steal funds from a campaign account previously belonging to former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The Justice Department unveiled a 23-count <a href="https://www.justice.gov/usao-edca/media/1417121/dl?inline">indictment</a> against 53-year-old Democrat consultant Dana Williamson, charging her with bank fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States and obstruct justice, subscribing to false tax returns, and making false statements. Williamson, who worked for Newsom between 2022 and 2024, is accused of participating in a scheme to divert $225,000 from Becerra’s dormant campaign account.
“This is a crucial step in an ongoing political corruption investigation that began more than three years ago,” said U.S. Attorney Eric Grant. “As it always has, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to work tirelessly with our law enforcement partners to protect the people of California from political corruption.”
The indictment alleges that Williamson worked with lobbyist Greg Campbell and former Becerra chief of staff Sean McCluskie to funnel funds from the dormant campaign account. Prosecutors say the scheme operated between February 2022 and September 2024.
<div id="attachment_1000185" style="width: 1549px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-1000185" class="size-full wp-image-1000185" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-6.56.15-AM.png" alt="" width="1539" height="353" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-6.56.15-AM.png 1539w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-6.56.15-AM-300x69.png 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-6.56.15-AM-1024x235.png 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-6.56.15-AM-768x176.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/11/Screenshot-2025-11-13-at-6.56.15-AM-1536x352.png 1536w" sizes=" (max-width: 1539px) 100vw, 1539px" />Indictment</div>
Both McCluskie and Campbell accepted plea deals last month related to the scheme. 
“Mr. Campbell takes full accountability for his actions and is cooperating fully with the legal process,” Todd Pickles, a lawyer for Campbell, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/us/newsom-aide-corruption-charges.html">said</a> in a statement. He added that Campbell is “an honorable former public servant and a positive and respected member of the community who has conducted himself with integrity through this deeply challenging process.”
The indictment also alleged that Williamson claimed more than $1 million in fraudulent tax deductions. This includes claiming deductions for items like a $15,353 Chanel handbag and ring, a $5,818 Fendi handbag and wallet, a $19,498 heating and cooling system at her home, a $9,859 watch, a $6,324 couch for her home, a $21,175 private jet charter, a $15,662 luxury hotel stay on her birthday, and $156,302 for a luxury vacation in Mexico, according to the indictment. 
Williamson pleaded not guilty to the charges during an appearance in federal court on Wednesday. Footage shared online by California political reporter Ashley Zavala showed her exiting the courthouse without responding to questions from reporters.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Here’s what happened when Dana Williamson— Gov. Newsom’s former Chief of Staff— emerged from federal court.
She stayed pretty silent and said we could talk to her attorneys. Her attorney wouldn’t talk.
She had nothing to say when I asked for her message to Xavier Becerra: <a href="https://t.co/hbgOtvhLsp">pic.twitter.com/hbgOtvhLsp</a>
— Ashley Zavala (@ZavalaA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZavalaA/status/1988776317698076800?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">November 13, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
McGregor Scott, Williamson’s lawyer, accused the Trump administration of showboating in its handling of the case. 
“They chose the grandstanding route,” he told the New York Times. “The only conclusion I can draw is this is the latest misstep taken down the wrong road by the Trump Justice Department.”
If convicted, Williamson could face decades in prison and penalties totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Becerra, who is running for governor of California, said he was cooperating with federal authorities. 
&#8220;The news today of formal accusations of impropriety by a long-serving trusted advisor are a gut punch,” he said. “As California’s former Attorney General, I fully comprehend the importance of allowing this investigation and legal process to run its course through our justice system.”

California Gov. Newsom Discusses Texas’ Redistricting Plan

Newsom Insider Busted: Top Dem Consultant Nabbed In Corruption Scandal

California

Crime

Gavin Newsom

Scandals

Xavier Becerra

IL Gov. Pritzker Holds Press Conference After Visit To Metropolitan Peace Academy

Here’s The Latest Round Of Democrat Money Laundering Schemes

Democrats

JB Pritzker

Los Angeles City Council

Money

A Senate panel on Wednesday advanced a bill that seeks to prohibit members of Congress, presidents, and vice presidents from trading or holding individual stocks — although the ban would not force a full divestment for current office holders until if and they win and start another term.
Part of an effort led by Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), the legislation passed through the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee in an 8-7 vote. Democrats joined with Hawley in supporting the <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/26036909/s-1498-hawley-substitute-as-modified-wal25677.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">measure</a>, while the rest of the Republicans opposed it.
“Americans have watched politicians earn a fortune using information not available to the general public while the average family struggles to get by. It&#8217;s just wrong,&#8221; Hawley said. &#8220;Members of Congress should be focused on delivering results for their constituents, not returns on investments. It&#8217;s time to find out where members stand. It&#8217;s time we restore trust in Congress and ban all members from trading and holding stocks.&#8221;
Featuring a name <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/06/29/opinion/pelosis-prime-profits-prove-its-time-to-ban-congress-stock-trading/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">inspired</a> by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and her strong performance in the stock market, the bill initially offered by Hawley sought to keep just lawmakers and their spouses from stock picking, but allow for investment in diversified mutual funds, Exchange-Traded Funds, and Treasury bonds. President Donald Trump even <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/sen-hawley-reintroduces-pelosi-act-to-curb-congressional-stock-trading-trump-signals-approval" target="_blank" rel="noopener">suggested</a> he would sign the legislation.
A change was later offered to add the president and vice president to the ban, part of what Axios <a href="https://www.axios.com/2025/07/29/white-house-lobbies-hawley-stock-trading-ban" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a> to be Hawley&#8217;s bid to gain Democrat support. But with the White House raising Article II concerns, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee ultimately approved a version that bars only current office-holders from stock trading if they get elected to another term — effectively giving Trump a pass, given he&#8217;s in his second term. Still, that was enough for the Democrats.
&#8220;The American people think ALL politicians, Democrats and Republicans, use our position to enrich ourselves,&#8221; Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) <a href="https://x.com/SenatorSlotkin/status/1950599974686691459" target="_blank" rel="noopener">declared</a> in a post on X. &#8220;Today, we sent a bill to the Senate floor that bans Members of Congress, the President, and VP from trading stocks. It’s not perfect, but it’s a good first step, and we should pass it into law.&#8221;
Business Insider <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/congressional-stock-trading-ban-clears-senate-committee-republicans-arguing-insults-2025-7" target="_blank" rel="noopener">noted</a> that even though full divestment from individual stocks would not be required immediately, it would prevent Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and lawmakers from buying stocks right way and, 90 days after enactment, disallow them from selling stocks.
Now the legislation heads to the full Senate, where the GOP has a 53-seat majority.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), the chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, said he opposed exempting Trump because he believes &#8220;everybody should be treated fairly.&#8221; He also bemoaned how it excluded the courts and staff of office-holders.
Another Republican on the panel, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TfalT1gSTbo" target="_blank" rel="noopener">derided</a> what he called &#8220;legislative demagoguery.&#8221; He noted that insider trading laws and financial disclosure rules already exist. In addition, Johnson warned the measure would &#8220;make it very unattractive&#8221; for people to run for office, particularly those with business experience.
There is GOP support for a congressional stock trading ban in the House. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) has signaled that she will <a href="https://x.com/RepLuna/status/1950317068911263752" target="_blank" rel="noopener">force</a> a vote.
&#8220;Members of Congress should be banned from trading individual stocks because their access to privileged, nonpublic information creates unavoidable conflicts of interest that erode public confidence in government,&#8221; Luna <a href="https://x.com/RepLuna/status/1950589449600929876" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> in a post on X.
&#8220;As lawmakers, we receive classified briefings, shape economic policies, and interact with industry leaders, giving us insights that can influence stock prices. Even if no laws are broken, the appearance of profiting from this access fuels distrust among Americans,&#8221; she added. &#8220;The American people do not trust the US government and banning stock trading is a step forward to building that trust.&#8221;

Sen. Josh Hawley

Senate Panel Votes To Ban Stock Trading For Lawmakers, President, And VP — But Spares Trump

Congress

Executive

Josh Hawley

Rand Paul

Ron Johnson

Stock Market

U.S. Senate

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said that he&#8217;s been &#8220;shocked&#8221; by what he&#8217;s learned so far during his time with the Bureau, specifically with regard to the politicization and &#8220;weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations.&#8221;
Bongino, who left a lucrative career in talk radio to take his post at the FBI, shared his observations in a lengthy post on X, promising to follow the investigations wherever they might lead in order to ultimately get &#8220;the answers WE ALL DESERVE.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
During my tenure here as the Deputy Director of the FBI, I have repeatedly relayed to you that things are happening that might not be immediately visible, but they are happening.
The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization…
— Dan Bongino (@FBIDDBongino) <a href="https://twitter.com/FBIDDBongino/status/1949125573055332672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 26, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;During my tenure here as the Deputy Director of the FBI, I have repeatedly relayed to you that things are happening that might not be immediately visible, but they are happening,&#8221; Bongino began, referring to his routine updates informing his followers of the work he and FBI Director Kash Patel are doing behind the scenes.
&#8220;The Director and I are committed to stamping out public corruption and the political weaponization of both law enforcement and intelligence operations. It is a priority for us,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;But what I have learned in the course of our properly predicated and necessary investigations into these aforementioned matters, has shocked me down to my core. We cannot run a Republic like this. I’ll never be the same after learning what I’ve learned.&#8221;
Bongino concluded with a promise to get to the bottom of the issues at hand, no matter what the outcome, because he said the people deserved to know the truth.
&#8220;We are going to conduct these righteous and proper investigations by the book and in accordance with the law. We are going to get the answers WE ALL DESERVE. As with any investigation, I cannot predict where it will land, but I can promise you an honest and dignified effort at truth. Not &#8216;my truth,&#8217; or &#8216;your truth,&#8217; but THE TRUTH,&#8221; he said. &#8220;God bless America, and all those who defend Her. Respectfully, Dan.&#8221;

Dan Bongino

‘Shocked Me To My Core’: Dan Bongino Rattled By What He’s Uncovered At FBI So Far

'Shocked Me To My Core': Dan Bongino Rattled By What He's Uncovered At FBI So Far

kash patel

This is part three in a series of investigative reports on the African Development Foundation, which gained notoriety for resisting a review by the Department of Government Efficiency. 
—
The Department of Government Efficiency has shuttered a small, USAID-adjacent federal agency called the African Development Foundation, over the outrage of Democrats who say it means poor Africans will suffer and public servants will lose their jobs.
But top officials used the agency to advance their own interests and live lives of luxury at the expense of those Africans, while forcing some staff to work without pay and abusing others so badly that they routinely cried, a Daily Wire investigation found.
That included helping Herbalife, a multi-level marketing scheme run by an agency board member, make inroads in Africa. John Agwunobi, who served as CEO of Herbalife, was an African Development Foundation board member until President Donald Trump fired the board in March.
Agency management locked the doors to prevent DOGE auditors from entering, and the Trump administration gained access only with the assistance of U.S. Marshals. The standoff made the agency the subject of <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/03/united-states-african-development-foudation-doge-lawsuit/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fawning</a> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/mar/06/federal-workers-block-musks-doge-africa-development-agency" target="_blank" rel="noopener">coverage</a> from media outlets that said it was standing up for principles.
But its employees knew better.
“The hero of the story is actually the villain,” one former employee said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was so hard to see ADF being used as a beacon of hope and resistance against DOGE because I knew they were actually covering up horrible things…When I saw that ADF was being celebrated as a David vs. Goliath situation, I knew the doors were being kept locked for a reason.”
In 2020, the African agency partnered with Herbalife at Agwunobi’s behest. That was two months after Herbalife paid a $122 million settlement to the Department of Justice to settle criminal charges that it <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/herbalife-nutrition-ltd-agrees-pay-over-122-million-resolve-fcpa-case" target="_blank" rel="noopener">violated the Foreign Corrupt</a> Practices Act. It also paid $200 million to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that it was a <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2016/07/herbalife-will-restructure-its-multi-level-marketing-operations-pay-200-million-consumer-redress" target="_blank" rel="noopener">pyramid scheme</a> that exploited people into opening money-losing businesses.
The African Development Foundation made it seem like the partnership was with a nonprofit affiliated with Herbalife. But it was actually with the company itself, which was seeking to expand its reach in Africa, the agency’s former general counsel, Mateo Dunne, found, according to materials obtained by The Daily Wire. The grants involved paying five Africans $5,000 and providing them “product donations, and Herbalife Nutrition staff as global volunteers in their businesses,” partnership materials said.
“The marketing materials prepared by USADF and Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. reflect that the partnership was being used to drive corporate sales and marketing, not charitable objectives,” Dunne concluded. “USADF personnel described the partnership with Herbalife Nutrition Ltd. as designed to leverage USADF’s network and reputation to promote the Herbalife brand in Africa.”
That sort of violation of conflict of interest rules was common in the agency, Dunne said.
The agency’s chief executive from 2016 to 2021, C.D. Glin — a former Peace Corps DEI officer and later an Obama political appointee to the Peace Corps — had the agency pay $5,000 a year to an organization, Root Capital, of which he was a board member, employees said. Glin did not file conflict-of-interest reports and ethics pledges, which are required <a href="https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-5/chapter-XVI/subchapter-B/part-2634" target="_blank" rel="noopener">by law</a> and designed to prevent such situations, for most of the years he worked there. He filed one in 2019, but omitted Root Capital from it.
<div class="image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-917689" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed-572x576.png" alt="" width="572" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed-572x576.png 572w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed-298x300.png 298w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed-150x150.png 150w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed-768x773.png 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed-1526x1536.png 1526w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/05/unnamed.png 1590w" sizes=" (max-width: 572px) 100vw, 572px" /></div>
<h3>Using poverty funds for luxury.</h3>
In January 2022, Travis Adkins, who had been serving as a <a href="https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-africa-global-funders-2021-3-biden-appoints-head-of-usaid-africa-bureau/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden appointee</a> to USAID, took over as CEO of the African Development Foundation. He had a lien against him for unpaid federal taxes from 2015 until February 2021, according to public records. Landlords in New York and Washington, D.C., said in court filings that he owed them money.
Employees said both Glin and Adkins used agency spending to build their personal brands and glad-hand with celebrities and billionaires, while treating workers with the callous cruelty of which liberals accuse DOGE, employees said.
Glin had the agency pay for him to “travel to countries and network at things that had nothing to do with grassroots African economic development. He went to a Scandinavian country, a European country, African countries where there was no ADF program being considered. He was spending ADF money to get his next job,” an employee said.
Another employee said he’d have the agency pay to sponsor conferences in order to buy prominent speaking slots: “He’d pay $30,000 to speak at events.”
Glin had the agency pay $1,000 to <a href="http://theboardlist.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">theboardlist.com</a>, which helps executives get prestigious board seats based on DEI hiring in exchange for that amount, and $7,500 for a Harvard executive class just before leaving the agency, workers said.
All of that seems to have paid off: Glin is now president of the PepsiCo Foundation, overseeing $70 million.
<blockquote>
<h3>&#8220;He went to a Scandinavian country, a European country, African countries where there was no ADF program being considered. He was spending ADF money to get his next job.&#8221;</h3>
</blockquote>
Adkins, for his part, brushed off government rules about travel costs and demanded $1,000-a-night hotels, summarily firing an assistant who raised concerns about his travel arrangements, the former assistant told The Daily Wire, speaking on condition of anonymity.  He had a tailor fit him for three custom suits, and sent the bill to the agency, she alleged.
After publication, counsel for Travis Adkins provided evidence confirming that an invoice for $9,000 in custom suits was submitted solely to his executive assistant’s work email address and included USADF’s office address as the billable address; however, no evidence has been uncovered that Mr. Adkins submitted this invoice for payment or reimbursement to USADF. According to Adkins, he ultimately forwarded the invoice email to his private email address and provided evidence that, three weeks later, he paid the invoice from his personal funds. Regarding the hotel rooms, Adkins refutes the claims and further claims, if he did stay at a hotel costing above that permitted under the government travel rules, he paid for the overage with his own money.
The executives seemed more concerned about making the agency look good — so congressional funding would continue flowing — than they were in actually doing good, employees said.
One grantee, called Vava Coffee, violated rules about how it spent grant money, but threatened to publicly disparage the agency as “colonizers” if the checks didn’t keep coming. Glin ordered disbursements to continue, employee Kate Ristroph said in an internal interview obtained by The Daily Wire. She said she eventually succeeded in terminating the grant.
The agency entered into a partnership with the National Basketball Players Association, where NBA players could choose how to spend money in Africa, and American taxpayers would match it. Some of the money was used to build a basketball court.
<h3>Toxic workplace.</h3>
The African Development Foundation had a staff of between 30 and 60, and a budget of $45 million. By law, it was permitted to give grants only to African groups, and in the amount of $250,000 or less.
Glin and Adkins frequently hired workers as contractors instead of government employees, sometimes directing African funding recipients to, in turn, pay D.C. bureaucrats to get around rules and hide their overhead costs.
There were also other advantages. Hiring workers as contractors meant they didn’t have to follow merit-based hiring practices, prove wrongdoing when firing people, or grant them union protections.
The agency appeared so intent on avoiding those protections that it would essentially use government credit cards to pay workers in “micropurchases,” a petty cash-like payment style that avoids scrutiny from Treasury Department officials. One contractor described having to restart her employment every five weeks, each time being paid by a different pass-through LLC, and sometimes working for long periods without pay.
Staff were horrifically mistreated by Glin and Adkins, who acted as if they were global celebrities instead of what amounted to managers of a few dozen people in an obscure organization, according to Daily Wire interviews and videos of an internal investigation.
Brandi James, the chief of staff, said in a videotaped internal interview: “Toxic would be people crying or things like that. Yeah, we had that, we had [Glin] yelling.”
A junior employee said she soiled herself after Glin made her afraid to leave her desk to use the bathroom. She said Glin would pound his fists, and people would walk into his office “with their hands shaking.”
Jeff Gilleo, a senior program manager, called Glin a “narcissistic bully” who “said mean things to almost everybody.”
Associate General Counsel Nina-Belle Mbayu said Glin screamed at her until she cried, and she sought therapy after having “physical reactions” anytime she thought of him. “People were just treated, in my opinion, as disposable,” she said.
Yael Nagar, a senior program analyst, said one employee “went on extended sick leave for a mental health program because they were so stressed at work,” and Glin’s takeaway was “we need to make sure no one…finds out about this.”
Employees said they tried to warn PepsiCo against hiring Glin, sending a letter “about the horrific culture and use of money” under Glin, but that he was hired anyway.
PepsiCo and Glin did not return a request for comment.
The African Development Foundation board also received the letter. But despite widespread agreement about Glin’s toxicity, it hired a close friend of Glin’s, Adkins, without Adkins even applying, Adkins said in a deposition. And many of the patterns continued.
On GlassDoor, the website where employees rate their workplaces, the themes were consistent. “USADF is a scary place to work… Maybe one day it will be a workplace that has admirable values and care for its staff. Presently though, it is rotten to the core,” one wrote in 2023.
“Toxic work environment led by narcissists,” another said that year. “After years of mismanagement, it cannot fulfill its potential.”
Brandi James, the agency’s chief of staff, said in an internal email that she tried to use government funds to pay GlassDoor to remove negative posts about the agency, but the site refused, leaving them visible to anyone who cared to look.
Though DOGE critics now claim that the African Development Foundation was essential and mourn for the jobs lost, when it was operational, no one showed an interest.x
It “just seemed like there was never going to be any consequence for any of these things,” Nagar said.
Editor&#8217;s note: This piece has been updated with information sent after publication by a representative from Travis Adkins, who refutes claims about his spending.
READ PART ONE: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/foreign-aid-official-who-resisted-doge-took-secret-payments-after-steering-africa-money-to-friend?author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Foreign+Aid+Official+Who+Resisted+DOGE+Took+Secret+Payments+After+Steering+Africa+Money+To+Friend%C2%A0" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Foreign Aid Official Who Resisted DOGE Took Secret Payments After Steering Africa Money To Friend</a> 
PART TWO: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/african-aid-agency-used-foreign-pass-throughs-to-hide-money-that-went-to-d-c-staff-friends" target="_blank" rel="noopener">African Aid Agency Used Foreign Pass-Throughs To Hide Money That Went To D.C. Staff</a>
PART FOUR: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/them-white-motherf-ers-racist-agency-framed-its-lawyer-after-he-discovered-lawbreaking-he-says?topStoryPosition=undefined&amp;author=Luke+Rosiak&amp;category=Investigation&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=1&amp;rowHeadline=Top+Stories&amp;rowType=Top+Stories&amp;title=‘Them+White+Motherf-ers’%3A+Racist+Agency+Framed+Its+Lawyer+After+He+Discovered+Lawbreaking%2C+He+Says">‘Them White Motherf-ers’: Racist Agency Framed Its Lawyer After He Discovered Lawbreaking, He Says</a>

African Development Foundation

Aid Agency Pushed Official’s For-Profit Pyramid Scheme On Poor Africans

Africa

USAID

Menu