Millions of Dollars from Now-Defunct USAID Reportedly Paying For Russell Vought’s Security Detail

AP

Trump budget chief Russell Vought reportedly diverted millions of dollars earmarked for the federal agency that once provided global humanitarian and economic aid in order to pay for his security detail, according to Reuters.

President Donald Trump dismantled the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shortly after taking office and is set to shutter it completely by September after “claiming without providing proof that it was rife with corruption,” the report said.

USAID was the primary federal agency that focused on global health, disaster relief, and education. A professor with The Harvard School of Public Health estimated that the dismantling “has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and malnutrition.” USAID was both created and continuously funded by acts of Congress, which the executive branch has no constitutional right to unilaterally undo.

Vought allegedly has a crew of more than a dozen U.S. Marshals acting as his bodyguards to protect him from threats linked to his involvement with Project 2025, a source told Reuters. The conservative “blueprint” has shaped Trump administration policies, including cutting thousands of federal jobs.

Reporters Jonathan Landay and Douglas Gillison wrote that they reviewed three documents showing $15 million in former USAID operating expenses now diverted to Vought.

According to the report:

One of the documents reviewed by Reuters said OMB signed an agreement with USAID last September 11 “to cover the costs associated with then Acting USAID Administrator Vought’s security detail through November.” That amount – $1.6 million – came from what is left of USAID’s operating expenses, the document showed.

OMB budgeted another $13.5 million in USAID funds to underwrite the costs of Vought’s security detail through the end of this year “as they relate to his current role as Senior Advisor to USAID,” the document said.

OMB spokesperson Rachel Cauley told Reuters in an email, “We are going to continue to use available funds at the three agencies overseen by the director to protect him.” Vought is the acting director of the Office of Budget Management and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and is a senior advisor to USAID after acting as its director for just 90 days.

In her statement, Cauley blamed “The Left”  for “pursuing a strategy that fuels an ‘assassination culture against public officials’ and then expresses ‘shock about what it takes to keep them safe.'”

Vought did not comment for the report.

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