Federal Spending Transparency and Accountability

By law, all federal spending is required to be publicly

available on usaspending.gov.

We've known for a while that Dr. Fauci used NIH funding to

finance bat coronavirus research at the Wuhan Institute of

Virology. But it took the watchdog White Coat Waste

Project to expose evidence that USAID

was funding it too. In fact, the bulk of the money

came from USAID. Yet no grants to the

Chinese lab appeared on

usaspending.gov. It was hidden from the

public through layers of unreported sub-grants and

sub-awards. Thankfully, my push to defund EcoHealth

Alliance was successful, and the group is now barred from receiving

US government grants. But this is why my TRACKS Act

must become law. To prevent money being sent to China, the

Taliban, or any other foreign adversary, every

grant recipient must be disclosed to ensure accountability,

and we shouldn't stop there. My bipartisan Stop Secret

Spending Act, introduced with Ranking Member

Peters, would add additional transparency to

federal spending. So Mr. Schellenberger, I'll start with you,

please. Why is USAID so secretive

about how it spends billions of taxpayer dollars?

Is it to avoid the public outrage over the waste, or

is there something more nefarious there?

Well, thank you, Senator. And first of all,

thank you for your leadership in

bringing transparency and accountability to aid and,

and the funding there.

Obviously, your-- this example you just gave of the Wuhan

Institute of Virology is

incredible. I mean, the fact it appears

that the US government funded the creation of the virus that called

the-- caused the global pandemic-