🔴 Website 👉 https://u-s-news.com/
Telegram 👉 https://t.me/usnewscom_channel
USAID has become well known in the 7+ months since President Trump took office as a CIA front organization that funneled clandestine funds (taxpayer dollars) for decades.
But as the dust settles on USAID’s destruction, another organization has come to light with equal — if not greater — clandestine ties.
The National Endowment for Democracy (N.E.D.) was created in the 80’s by Ronald Reagan, and reportedly did exactly the job it was openly espoused to handle… at least, at first.
But according to one Congressman, a former SEAL with an eye for covert deception from polished politicians, the N.E.D. quickly turned into something very similar to USAID.
Rep. Crane spoke with Steve Bannon over the weekend on N.E.D. and his views on the organization, as well as the roadblocks to actually defunding the institution for good:
If we don’t use the power of the purse as leverage, @NEDemocracy will continue censoring and attacking the America First movement.
My amendment would defund this rogue private institution.
Let’s see whether our representatives support We the People or the administrative state. pic.twitter.com/AguF3FWVsK
— Rep. Eli Crane (@RepEliCrane) August 2, 2025
The legislation Rep. Crane talked about in that clip designed to fully ban federal funding for N.E.D. is still sitting in Congress.
It has been introduced… but is currently waiting in the lineup and depends on whether a “continuing resolution” path forward keeps being taken by the Republican majority, or whether they will actually make good on keeping bills single-issue going forward (as once promised…):
Even before Rep. Elijah Crane turned his attention to N.E.D. it was Elon Musk’s original band of DOGE at President Trump’s behest who started sounding the alarm on the suspected CIA-affiliated NGO.
Within weeks of starting DOGE’s work inside federal agencies, Musk shared this via his X platform:
NED is a SCAM https://t.co/YmNO4NGMjS
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 2, 2025
Here’s the full text of Grok’s AI research, shared by Elon back in February, pinpointing 20 specific red flags associated with N.E.D. :
Per grok
Here are 20 red flags of corruption or concerns regarding the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), based on the information available:
Lack of Bipartisanship: Despite being legally required to reflect the diversity of American society, NED is predominantly staffed and led by Democrats, which raises questions about its political neutrality.
Political Discrimination: Allegations suggest that NED discriminates against Republicans and conservatives in hiring practices, potentially skewing its operations towards one political ideology.
Duplication of Efforts: NED’s activities often overlap with those of other U.S. government agencies, suggesting redundancy and potential inefficiency in the use of public funds.
Lack of Transparency: Since 2021, NED has not updated its online database of grants, reducing the transparency of its funding allocations.
Reduction in Reporting: NED ceased producing printable annual reports after 2017, opting for less detailed multimedia summaries, which might obscure detailed financial and operational transparency.
Board Composition: As of late 2023, the NED board had more members than the legally mandated maximum, potentially affecting governance.
Partisanship in Events and Activities: The organization’s programs and events are often seen as favoring one political perspective over another, suggesting a lack of balance in promoting democratic ideals.
CIA-like Operations: NED has been described as a continuation of the CIA’s covert activities under a different guise, raising concerns about its true purpose and methods.
Interference in Elections: NED has been accused of influencing election outcomes in countries like Bolivia by funding media and NGOs to highlight alleged election fraud by incumbent governments.
Funding Opposition Movements: NED’s support for opposition groups in various countries, often in line with U.S. foreign policy, can be seen as interference in domestic politics.
Manipulation of Narratives: There are claims that NED manipulates public opinion by funding media outlets and NGOs that promote narratives favorable to U.S. interests.
Undesirable NGO Status: Russia labeled NED as an “undesirable” organization in 2015, highlighting concerns over foreign interference in domestic affairs.
Historical Ties to CIA: The origins of NED as a response to expose CIA activities suggest a continuity in strategic objectives despite changes in operation from covert to overt.
Funding of Anti-Government Protests: NED has been linked to funding protests and opposition movements, like those during the Euromaidan in Ukraine, which could destabilize countries.
Selective Democracy Support: NED tends to support “democracy activists” in countries where U.S. geopolitical interests are at stake, questioning the purity of its democratic motives.
Infiltration and Subversion: Accusations of NED engaging in subversive activities, including ideological infiltration in regions like Europe and Latin America.
Support for “Color Revolutions”: NED’s involvement in various “color revolutions” worldwide indicates a strategic use of democracy promotion for geopolitical gain.
Lack of Accountability: There’s a call for oversight and investigation into NED’s operations, particularly its role in censoring U.S. citizens and its hiring practices.
Funding of Controversial NGOs: NED has funded organizations with controversial agendas or methods, raising ethical questions about the nature of the “democracy” it promotes.
Strategic Autonomy Suppression: In Europe, NED has been accused of suppressing voices for strategic autonomy in favor of transatlanticism, manipulating EU policy.
These red flags suggest areas where NED’s activities might not align with its mission to promote democracy or could be indicative of broader geopolitical strategies rather than pure democratic support.
It wasn’t long afterwards that N.E.D. started to feel the heat from it’s federal funding stoppage up as a result of DOGE and President Trump’s Executive actions intended to stem the flow of American taxpayer dollars being used for corrupt, illegal, and often POLITICALLY PROGRESSIVE purposes.
And in early March, the N.E.D. sued the Trump Administration for cutting it’s federal funding by use of Executive powers, as reported by The Hill:
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) has sued the Trump administration for cutting off funds for its democracy building overseas — the latest suit from a target of Elon Musk.
The lawsuit states the Treasury Department has locked out the endowment from $167 million in congressionally appropriated funds for more than a month, claiming it unconstitutionally usurps Congress’s power of the purse.
“For the last month, the Executive Branch has denied the Endowment access to its congressionally appropriated funds — something that has never occurred before in the Endowment’s forty-two-year existence,” the lawsuit states.
“As a result of the Executive’s unlawful impoundment of the funds that Congress appropriated for the Endowment, the Endowment is experiencing a devastating cash flow crisis that jeopardizes its ability to fulfill its mission and its very existence, as well as that of its core institutes and grantees,” the complaint reads.
The suit, filed in federal court in Washington, is the latest pushback to the Trump administration’s targeting of various departments and programs focused on overseas work.
Not surprisingly, even President Trump’s stated desire to defund the National Endowment for Democracy and leave it exactly zero federal funds was unheeded by Congressional Republicans once it came crunch time.
President Trump literally requested $0 federal dollars to be given to N.E.D.
Instead, acting according to some force that is apparently even stronger than the perceived strength of their Republican President’s intention… House Republicans changed that $0 to $315,000,000 and handed over the cash:
House Republican Appropriators restore full funding to the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Trump had asked for zero. House GOP puts back $315,000,000 and lets NED take in more cash through government contracts. (pages 29-30) @MikeBenzCyber https://t.co/N5VdljofbB pic.twitter.com/FfByAET2Kr
— J Michael Waller (@JMichaelWaller) July 28, 2025
If that isn’t proof of some hidden agenda among House Republicans, I don’t know what is. (It is DEFINITELY proof of hidden agendas!)
As I pointed out earlier, Rep. Crane introduced a piece of legislation that would fully defund N.E.D. in line with President Trump’s stated agenda.
Crane agrees that the organization may have had a “noble beginning”, but he is quick to point out the issues with the current board members, similarities to USAID’s CIA links, and overwhelming support of left-wing causes, as reported by the Daily Signal:
Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., moved to defund the National Endowment for Democracy after a House Republican proposal for fiscal year 2026 included full funding for the agency at 2025 levels, even though President Donald Trump called for defunding it.
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., the House Appropriations Committee member whose name appears at the top of the bill, defended NED funding in a statement to The Daily Signal after this article’s initial publication.
Taxpayer funding for international agencies like NED has received renewed scrutiny after the White House and the Department of Government Efficiency highlighted how much money the U.S. Agency for International Development had funneled to left-wing causes that do not promote American security. While agencies like NED and USAID have historically advanced American interests abroad, critics say they have promoted gender ideology, divisive racial programs, and regime change in recent years, undermining American interests.
“Have we learned nothing from the exposure of USAID over the past six months?” Crane told The Daily Signal in a statement Wednesday. “The National Endowment for Democracy is a government-backed NGO that has supported censorship programs, regime change politics, and fueled anti-American agendas abroad.”
“NED’s current board is made up of so-called ‘disinformation experts’ who played a key role in attacking the First Amendment, propping up the Russia hoax, and controlling the narrative around COVID-19,” Crane added.
“While President Trump requested no funding for the CIA cutout, House Republicans quietly slipped $315 million into the upcoming National Security, Department of State, and Related Programs Appropriations bill,” he noted. “Hopefully, my amendment will end this disgusting waste of taxpayer resources and, at the very least, put representatives on the record.”
“NED may have had a noble beginning, but it has strayed FAR beyond its original mission,” Crane concluded.
Tyler O’Neil (who wrote that article for The Daily Signal) also put his key thoughts on the work that Rep. Eli Crane is doing to defund the N.E.D. in a thread on X.
Here’s that thread for those of you who want a little deeper dive into the subject:
BREAKING
Even though President Trump’s budget would defund the National Endowment for Democracy, a House GOP FY 2026 funding bill allocated $315M to it.@RepEliCrane is leading an effort to do what Trump wanted.
Here’s why it’s important.
— Tyler O’Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) July 30, 2025
BREAKING
1/7The interwoven dynamics of the N.E.D. make it incredibly complicated to disentangle from the federal money coffers.
But like every corrupt cancerous growth, you either have to do the hard work of cutting it out…
Or you have to simply live with it’s presence, knowing all the while it’s very existence is detrimental to what matters most.
In this case, it is detrimental to a strong America because it promotes the siphoning of American taxpayer dollars and empowers those who would like to weaponize the power of the federal government for their own pet agendas.
Check out this clip of Mike Benz, former State Department Official during President Trump’s first term, explaining some of the background and problems with the N.E.D.
This is an incredibly good, concise explanation, as to why the N.E.D. is a PROBLEM in exactly the same way USAID was a problem:
But the N.E.D. doesn’t just target anti-American startups in third-world-countries organized and funded by Russia like you might imagine happening during Reagan’s Cold War.
It also targets the legitimate nationalist popular movements… seeing it as a threat to the classical paradigm of global hegemony.
In other words, it targets organic national movements like “American First” — because they are hard to CONTROL. And it uses American taxpayer money to do it!
Here’s more from Mike Benz on that issue in an article he authored for the Daily Caller:
Former State Department official Mike Benz shed light Tuesday on the growing global pushback against populist movements, saying that the CIA views these movements as a “global menace.”
House Republicans are pushing to allocate hundreds of millions in taxpayer dollars to an organization that the Trump administration aimed to defund, with the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) recommending the elimination of federal funding for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) due to its pattern of partisan advocacy and hostility toward Republicans, as well as its alleged bias against conservatives, censorship, and interference in foreign affairs. Benz explained on “Bannon’s War Room” that, when the Cold War ended, U.S. foreign policy institutions, designed to combat communism, found a new target in populist movements around the world.
“War found a new global menace, which was the global rise of populist parties. From Trump in the U.S. to Nigel Farage in the Brexit and Reform Party movements in the U.K. to Maureen Le Pen in France and Matteo Salvini in Italy and Bolsonaro in Brazil,” Benz said. “They faced this kind of unofficial, undeclared Second Cold War in the form of populism.”
The NED, Benz said, has aggressively targeted these movements, viewing them as threats to the liberal international order that has defined U.S. foreign policy since the Cold War.
“And the National Endowment for Democracy descended like a pack of vultures to try to essentially harvest, kill, and then eat the corpse of every little populist movement it could,” Benz added. “And so the issue right now with its funding is that you have House Republicans who still feel beholden to the traditional Republican foreign policy base from the Cold War era.”
Benz said that a significant portion of right-wing factions rely heavily on U.S. foreign policy tools, such as the Pentagon, USAID funding, and CIA-backed operations, to expand their markets and secure favorable outcomes in foreign legislation and regulations.
“A lot of right-wing, a lot of corporations, Chamber of Commerce companies, they depend on the battering ram of the Pentagon, of USAID funding, of CIA and clandestine NGO services in order to create their markets, in order to secure favorable legislation or regulations in countries, in order to lock in government contracts, in order to harvest natural resources. And so you have this kind of John McCain wing. John McCain actually ran the Republican side of the National Endowment for Democracy for 25 years,” Benz said. “Who I think is not going to let go of this weapon while it serves so many of their own interests.”
In a nutshell, if USAID operated primarily as the CIA’s foreign financial payout system…
The National Endowment for Democracy is more akin to a more specialized payout system, with even more control over the operational use of what its money buys in foreign nations.
And it often uses that control to ensure globalist, progressive, and REPRESIVE results.
Rep. Eli Crane hasn’t always come down hand-in-glove with President Trump on every issue.
On this issue, as far as I can tell, he’s solidly in the President’s corner — even when quite a few other Republicans have been quick to throw millions back into the Deep State’s bank account after DOGE and President Trump essentially EMPTIED it.
It remains to be seen if the N.E.D. will meet it’s match during the Trump Administration and go the way of USAID, or somehow weather the storm (the Trump Administration) intact.
But if Rep. Eli Crane has anything to say about it, this won’t be the last story I write on this issue.
This is a Guest Post from our friends over at WLTReport.