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Corruption flows from USAID, right-wing commentators argue, yet somehow Franklin Graham remains clean.
Special Government Employee Elon Musk and his DOGE team first targeted USAID, the agency with most of the responsibility for distributing foreign aid, under the auspices of making government more efficient. But Musk went further than claiming inefficiencies. He labeled USAID a "criminal organization," "viper's nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America," and "evil." So, rather than cutting waste, Musk began dismantling USAID almost entirely, or as Musk put it, "into the wood chipper."
To justify these conclusions, Musk began spreading false conspiracies on his platform X. He claimed, for instance, that USAID paid several Hollywood actors millions of dollars to appear in pro-Ukraine videos (a false claim originating in Russia with video faked to appear that it came from E!News, gift link), and that $50M was spent on condoms in Gaza.
When asked about the condoms misinformation at an Oval Office press conference on Tuesday, Musk responded, "some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected."
Musk also targeted Politico with his corruption claims, arguing that the news site received $8M from USAID as a bribe to give favorable coverage to Biden. This is also false. Politico provides a subscription to a news and information service designed especially for government employees. USAID purchased this subscription for its employees, but that's not a bribe, it's purchasing a service, and it spend $44,000, not $8M (which is the total Politico receives from all government agencies for the service).
If charging a fee for providing a product to the government makes one corrupt, that makes Musk corrupt as well, since he's one of the largest government contractors. Nearly $16 billion of federal money went to his companies last year alone. He became the world’s richest man in large part due to government contracts. More than that, his company Starlink has received funding from USAID.
All these false conspiracies made their way into the siloed world of MAGA-evangelical conflict entrepreneurs, who went to work attempting to apply Musk's techniques to their usual suspects. They claimed that Christianity Today magazine and The After Party, a small group study for churches created by Redeeming Babel, received some of that USAID bribe money. The Christianity Today claim, however, was based on a COVID-era tax credit that was categorized as a "government grant" (with no mention of USAID) on a charity funding website.
The After Party claim is dumber still. The Rockefeller Foundation received funds from USAID and the Rockefeller Foundation distributed funds to The After Party, therefore, "it's all connected," as the conspiracists like to say. This would be like claiming two people are laundering money if they use the same bank and one deposits money and another withdraws money.
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Now there are some Christian groups, including evangelical groups, that receive USAID grants, such as Catholic Relief Services and World Vision. USAID doesn't do all the work itself, it provides grant money to NGO's for many of the services it provides.
It wasn't long ago that Republicans favored this sort of thing, arguing that the private sector could provide these services at lower cost. Additionally, Republicans have been the party most in favor of allowing religious organizations to compete for these grants. This was part of George W. Bush's platform known as "Faith-based Initiatives."
Another organization that receives USAID funding is Samaritan's Purse, an evangelical ministry providing global poverty and disaster relief. That organization is led by Franklin Graham, an evangelical leader who has been outspoken in his support for President Donald Trump. Last year, Samaritan's Purse received over $90M in USAID funds. And even as USAID goes "through the wood chipper," Graham says his organization has been spared with a waiver. So the MAGA-evangelical conflict entrepreneurs are falsely claiming their usual targets got corrupt USAID money while ignoring one evangelical organization that actually got quite a bit of USAID money (though it's only 5% of Samaritan Purse's budget).
If you haven't figured this out by now, the answer to the question in the headline is "no," USAID funds don't make Franklin Graham corrupt. But this episode does shine a light on the incredible hypocrisy of those who are using this trumped up USAID scandal to try and stain those they consider their foes.
Additional Reading
NBC News: “How Elon Musk boosted false USAID conspiracy theories to shut down global aid”
Most of Musk’s more than 160 posts about USAID have been responses to a handful of small but influential verified accounts, many of them using pseudonyms. The most popular — including posts from Wall Street Apes, Kanekoa the Great, Chief Nerd and Autism Capital — have been viewed hundreds of millions of times, amplified by Musk and his 216 million followers, according to X metrics. As the theories spread, they are repackaged, and in many cases added upon, to further the claims.
A review of the accounts’ profiles reveals how a lengthy crusade to paint USAID as a malevolent force built up in recent years in relatively fringe internet circles, only to be suddenly elevated and acted upon by Musk. The pattern is similar to one that played out with the so-called Twitter Files in 2022, when selectively framed narratives and out-of-context internal documents were weaponized to fuel allegations of a grand government censorship conspiracy. And it is one likely to continue under Trump and Musk, who have histories of trafficking in falsehoods.
Forbes: “Elon Musk Makes Misleading Claim The Government Paid Reuters For ‘Social Deception’—The Biggest DOGE Hoaxes Spread On X”
Billionaire government efficiency chief Elon Musk has repeatedly spread baseless or false claims about government spending, including by the U.S. Agency for International Development and other agencies, making various unsupported allegations of criminal activity and a recent misleading claim that disaster relief funds were spent to house migrants in “luxury hotels” in New York.
The Guardian: “Far-right populists much more likely than the left to spread fake news – study”
Far-right populists are significantly more likely to spread fake news on social media than politicians from mainstream or far-left parties, according to a study which argues that amplifying misinformation is now part and parcel of radical right strategy.
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