The Biden administration's State Department used $1.2 million of taxpayer money to upgrade swimming pools at U.S. embassies and missions in warn-torn and poverty-stricken countries, including Russia after it invaded Ukraine, according to an analysis by the office of Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa.
"Bureaucrats might think wasting millions is a drop in the bucket, but I am sick and tired of taxpayers getting tossed in the deep end by Washington," Ernst told the New York Post in a story published Thursday.
Ernst leads the Senate DOGE Caucus, which she helped create to continue her work cutting waste, fraud, and abuse in the federal government.
The Biden administration placed at least 14 orders related to swimming pools at embassies or mission residences in seven countries, the analysis found. In addition to Russia, there were also two upgrades for pools in Haiti, five in Iraq, three in Sudan, one in Zimbabwe, one in Ghana, and one in Indonesia.
The State Department approved a more than $130,000 upgrade to U.S. mission residences in Harare, Zimbabwe, to include a pool cover, according to USASpending.gov, which Ernst's team used to compile the data, the Post reported.
At the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, about $40,000 was spent in 2022 for a "swimming pool sewer pump replacement," with the contract being issued almost three months after Russia's invasion.
In Iraq, taxpayers were billed for a roughly $444,000 upgrade to the indoor dehumidification system in the Baghdad Embassy, a structure that cost more than $750 million to build, the Post reported.
Some of the contracts uncovered have not been fully paid, including a $173,000 contract awarded for a "swimming pool project," the Post reported, citing USASpending.gov records.
Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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