During a discussion on Triggered, Mike Benz and Donald Trump Jr. detailed how the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has operated with less accountability than the CIA, bypassing presidential approval to conduct covert operations, fund opposition movements, and undermine populist leaders worldwide.
Benz explained that USAID allows intelligence agencies to circumvent direct presidential approval for certain covert actions.
“What they said is, this is discrete action rather in furtherance of democracy promotion, instead of covert action in furtherance of spycraft, but it’s tomatoes, tomatoes. That’s why USAID is dirtier than CIA,” Benz stated.
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He pointed to how USAID can channel funds and resources to foreign militant groups without the president’s knowledge.
“If you want to fund terrorists, if you have a rogue cell at CIA who wants to support ISIS in Syria and Trump says, ‘I don’t want to support ISIS. ISIS is bad.’ What they can do is they can move over to USAID and have USAID creatively structure the logistics so that it goes to ISIS. And Trump wouldn’t know.”
Trump Jr. responded by suggesting that USAID operates beyond even the CIA’s level of secrecy, questioning how it was able to bypass oversight under both Democratic and Republican administrations.
“So, I mean, USAID isn’t just a front for the CIA. It actually seems like it’s significantly worse. It seems like it’s just been completely unaccountable until now,” Trump Jr. said.
He noted that Democrats are now panicking about USAID’s exposure, despite the agency’s historical role in advancing their political agendas.
“Even if they did it to subvert Obama, is this just the gravy train that kept that machine running as well? How do you juxtapose some of that, which is, you know, obviously, unsanctioned regime change, or at least attempts, with, you know, I don’t know, $100,000 for trans programs in Pakistan, a million dollars for DEI training in Burma, like all of this insanity that we see?”
Benz confirmed that USAID’s actions against Trump far exceeded its previous activities, highlighting how the agency actively worked to remove Trump’s allies from power across the globe.
“Well, make no mistake, what they did to Trump was 1,000 times worse than what they did with Obama. At least, for example, in operations like Cuba, USAID wasn’t attacking Obama,” Benz said.
He explained that Trump, as president, would never have approved a CIA operation against himself, but USAID was able to run covert operations without his knowledge.
“USAID actually… Trump would not approve a CIA covert action against himself. But if they walk over to USAID and run it through there, he would never know. And this is exactly what happened.”
Benz detailed how USAID worked to undermine populist leaders aligned with Trump, including:
- Marine Le Pen (France)
- Matteo Salvini (Italy)
- Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil)
“USAID systematically set about trying to regime-change every single one of Trump’s international allies,” Benz revealed.
He also outlined how USAID funneled $20 million to the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP)—a network of investigative journalists—to find damaging information on Trump’s associates.
“USAID paid $20 million to a group called OCCRP. It’s… the largest consortium of hit-piece investigative journalists in the world, and they paid them. USAID paid them $20 million, and they turned around and dug up dirt on Rudy Giuliani’s work in Ukraine, and then helped use that as the basis to impeach the sitting president, Donald Trump, in 2019.”
When it’s too dirty for the CIA, you give it to USAID
Mike Benz @MikeBenzCyber lifts the veil on what the swamp doesn’t want you to know pic.twitter.com/CBD0DEQnMF
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) February 8, 2025
With USAID’s history of covert influence and regime-change operations now under scrutiny, the Trump administration’s push to dismantle and restructure the agency has intensified.
The revelations by Benz and Trump Jr. underscore the agency’s unchecked power, its role in shaping global political landscapes, and its direct interference in U.S. politics.
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