Judicial Watch report: Taliban getting rich on U.S. taxpayer dollars after failed Biden/Harris 2021 withdrawal

WASHINGTON, DC - It was bad enough that during the Biden/Harris failed withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan thirteen U.S. soldiers were killed and billions in military equipment was left behind. Now, to add injury to insult, Judicial Watch is reporting that the Taliban has received nearly $240 million in government aid, thanks to the inept Biden/Harris State Department. 

Last year, Judicial Watch reported that the Taliban had established a number of fake nonprofits to siphon off millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Afghanistan. Now, a new investigation found that due to a botched vetting process by the State Department, the Taliban has received $239 million in developmental assistance. 

According to a report published this month by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), that money has poured into the Taliban’s coffers since the botched 2021 military withdrawal from that country. The money was distributed by divisions under the State Department known as Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor (DRL) and International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL), and is intended to fund development projects designed to achieve American foreign policy and national security goals in the war-torn nation. 

The SIGAR found problems with 29 awards distributed by DRL and INL. For example, DRL didn’t properly screen the recipients of seven awards totaling $12 million. In the case of INL, it could not provide any supporting documents for 19 of its 22 awards with a total of $295 million, so Judicial Watch said there isn’t a way to determine compliance with vetting requirements. 

Judicial Watch wrote:

“The State Department acknowledged that not all its bureaus have complied with document retention requirements, which makes it conveniently impossible to fully assess the magnitude of its transgressions.” 

INL claimed the reason they didn’t retain records was due to “employee turnover and the dissolution of the Afghanistan-Pakistan office,” the report said. SIGAR emphasized that due to the Taliban’s Afghanistan takeover in August 2021, it is vital that federal government activities “adhere to the laws, regulations, and policies intended to prevent certain transactions with terrorists,” Judicial Watch wrote. 

The Taliban has turned the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan into a gigantic money machine. Aside from establishing bogus non-governmental organizations (NGO) to launder a significant portion of the nearly $3 billion in “humanitarian aid” the American taxpayers have sent to Afghanistan since the bungled Biden/Harris withdrawal, the Taliban has also imposed taxes, permit fees, and import duties to swell its financial coffers. 

That money has filtered into Afghanistan via the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), an organization Judicial Watch calls “a famously corrupt State Department arm that got $63.1 billion for foreign assistance and diplomatic engagement this year.” Afghanistan has also received money from the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the government’s international broadcasting service whose intent is “to inform, engage, and connect people around the world in support of freedom and democracy.” 

Speaking of corrupt organizations, the United Nations has also laundered $1.6 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars to Afghanistan, with a large percentage of that money likely finding its way to the Taliban as well, according to a federal audit. The U.S. government doesn’t require the corrupt United Nations to report on taxes, fees, or duties incurred on American funds for activities in Afghanistan, Judicial Watch wrote.