The Biden administration quietly awarded $15 million in taxpayer funds to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan to help distribute "oral contraceptives and condoms," a non-public congressional funding notice reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon shows. In doing so, the administration acknowledged that "some coordination" with the Taliban would be "necessary for programmatic purposes."
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) earmarked the cash infusion, which has not been previously reported, last July. It transmitted the funds to Afghanistan in August, according to the funding notice and congressional sources familiar with the matter.
The $15 million USAID and its partner groups spent to "procure contraceptives," including "oral contraceptives and condoms" in the Middle Eastern nation was part of a $100 million package meant to support "basic rights and freedoms" and empower "women and girls" living under Taliban rule. The terrorist organization, the USAID funding notice states, does not allow "young women and girls" to go to school or work in most professional fields.
It was the Biden administration's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan three years prior that led to those restrictions. The Taliban took over Kabul even before the final U.S. military planes left the city, and they quickly banned girls from school beyond sixth grade, making Afghanistan the only country in the world with such restrictions.
U.S. law forbids taxpayer funds from going to the Taliban, a specially designated global terrorist organization. The USAID funding notice referenced that ban by stating that the agency's efforts in Afghanistan would "require some level of coordination with local, provincial, and national authorities but without directly benefiting them."
"Although some coordination will be necessary for programmatic purposes, USAID and its partners are clear that there will be no direct assistance to the Taliban," the notice states. "Due diligence will continue to be exercised to ensure compliance with OFAC sanctions and statutory restrictions on assistance to the Taliban and that programs have robust safeguards in place to prevent Taliban interference or diversion."
In addition to the $15 million USAID said would help Afghan nonprofits pursue the "social marketing of contraceptives using commercial outlets," the funding package included millions of dollars for "community resilience and livelihood opportunities," "safely managed water services," and "support to improve the quality and market relevance of academic offerings at Afghan higher education institutions."
While the $15 million has already been spent, funding initiatives of this nature are drawing fresh scrutiny from the newly installed GOP-led Congress, particularly in light of the outgoing administration’s last-minute spending spree on a slew of left-wing priorities, including more than $1 million for diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives abroad. Much of that spending came after former president Joe Biden dropped his reelection campaign, and some of it came after President Donald Trump won the November election.
Rep. Brian Mast (R., Fla.), the House Foreign Affairs Committee’s new chairman, is now undertaking efforts to reassess the State Department’s nearly $90 billion budget, an effort meant to ensure that American tax dollars are not spent on frivolous projects abroad.
"We will be doing a full State Department reauthorization. We will wake up, eat, sleep, and breathe to root out waste in the State Department and make America the partner of choice," Mast said during a congressional roundtable discussion on the matter earlier this week. "No one can tell you why America is spending $50,000 on drag shows in Ecuador or $500,000 to expand atheism in Nepal."
The Biden administration allocated the Afghanistan funding in question just months before the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR)—a federal oversight body that monitors America’s multibillion-dollar investment in post-Taliban Afghanistan—determined it had failed to adequately combat gender-based violence in the war-torn country.
Plans developed by the State Department and USAID "did not include any goals for preventing and responding to [gender-based violence] in Afghanistan," according to SIGAR.
For Simone Ledeen, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East, USAID's contraceptive funding did "nothing to address the immediate and brutal repression of women, who are systemically denied basic rights."
"There must be a thorough audit of U.S. taxpayer funding to ensure it aligns with meaningful and accountable objectives," she told the Free Beacon.