Former New Jersey Superior Court Judge Andrew Napolitano told Newsmax on Monday that he prefers Congress deciding whether to eliminate the U.S. Agency for International Development but added President Donald Trump has authority to prevent the independent government agency from spending money.
A firestorm has erupted over USAID since Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk, has talked about dismantling the agency following Trump's executive order that paused all U.S. foreign assistance funded by or through the State Department and USAID.
The Trump administration earlier this month put 60 senior USAID staffers on leave, and then two top security chiefs on leave after they refused to turn over classified material in restricted areas to Musk's DOGE teams. Trump has since named Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting administrator of USAID.
"It would be a lot better if Congress shut it down," Napolitano told "Carl Higbie FRONTLINE." "Over the weekend, you had the so-called blue-on-blue. That's where armed police confront each other. So, you had U.S. marshals accompanying Elon Musk's people, and then you have USAID's own security, where federal agents [are] confronting the U.S. marshals. Fortunately, nobody got hurt.
"That's why it's a lot better if Congress undoes this. Can the president not spend the money? Yes, he can take the money and isolate it. But then he must tell Congress he's isolating it. He must propose to Congress what should be done with that money, instead, [and] he has 45 days in which to do that. This is a federal statute enacted by Congress telling presidents what to do when they don't want to spend money that Congress orders being spent."
USAID reportedly oversaw the disbursement of $38 billion in 2023. In a Jan. 15 post on its X account, DOGE detailed some of what USAID has spent, including $45 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion scholarships in Myanmar, $520 million for consultant-driven environmental, social, and governance investments in Africa, and $1.2 billion in awards to undisclosed recipients.
The White House also on Monday disclosed that USAID spent $1.5 million to advance DEI in Serbia's workplaces and business communities; $70,000 for production of a DEI musical in Ireland; $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia; $32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru; and $2 million for sex changes and LGBTQ activism in Guatemala.
Napolitano said the benefit of such controversy over USAID — Democrat lawmakers denounced Trump and Musk outside USAID's offices Monday — is that it exposes the wasteful spending done by the agency's unelected bureaucrats.
"[They are] opening up the eyes to the American public of some of the most radical, incredible waste of federal dollars, which give bureaucrats the decision, not the president, not Congress, but bureaucrats that determination as to how to spend this money," Napolitano said. "That is the worst part about this because nobody [is] elected there. Here's $100 billion for Project X, and then they just spend it however they want to, like Burma, LGBTQ higher education."
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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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