The Trump administration went after $1.25 billion that Congress set aside for disaster relief and peacekeeping. It tried to steer that money to the Board of Peace, a body Donald Trump created and can chair until he decides to quit. A new Senate report says nobody set up the basic rules for tracking where the money goes. And officials couldn’t say whether any of it could end up paying Trump himself.
The $1.25 Billion Shuffle
On Oct. 29, Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee released a report on the administration’s effort to redirect $1.25 billion in humanitarian and peacekeeping aid toward the Board of Peace.
Look at where that money came from. In March, State Department officials pulled $1 billion from international disaster assistance, $200 million from peacekeeping and $50 million from international organizations, according to a person familiar with the funding.
That’s money Congress approved for earthquakes, famines and peacekeepers. The Trump administration wanted it for a board run by Trump.
A Board Built Around One Man
Under the Board’s own charter, Donald J. Trump serves as its chairman. The charter sets no end date. A U.S. official told ABC News that Trump can keep the chairmanship until he resigns, even after he leaves the White House.
The chairman has broad power. He alone can create or dissolve the Board’s subsidiary bodies. Countries that hand over more than $1 billion in cash in the first year get to skip the normal three-year membership limit.
Then Trump signed an executive order granting the Board legal immunities that normally go to international organizations. Under federal law, that status can shield an organization from lawsuits and searches.
No Rules, No Answers
The report says that Trump, while chairing the Board, did not set up any of the financial monitoring and staff-vetting procedures normally required before U.S. money goes to an international organization.
It gets worse. According to the report, administration officials could not say whether U.S. funds could be used to personally pay Trump, either now or after his presidency.
Shaheen raised the same alarm back in June. She wrote that State officials couldn’t answer basic questions in a briefing, including who works for the Board and how U.S. money would be monitored. The new report says officials still couldn’t answer them.
Where Is the Money?
Trump has promised the Board $10 billion of American money. Nobody outside it can say how much has actually arrived.
The Board has no public budget and no public staff count. In September, Board officials said they had called in just $280 million of the roughly $18 billion pledged by the U.S. and other countries. They said the slow pace was deliberate.
In June, it was reported that some foreign contributions were going into a JPMorgan account instead of a planned World Bank fund. Meanwhile, Gaza is still waiting for rebuilding to start.
Part of a Pattern
The Board of Peace isn’t the only case in the report. It also says the administration tried to shift or withhold nearly $400 million that Congress designated for Ukraine and Europe.
It says close to $1 billion in refugee aid was moved to the Department of Homeland Security for deportations. In total, Senate Democrats put the cost of Trump’s foreign policy waste at as much as $22 billion.
Over the same period, the report says Trump’s family made about $260 million from selling a stake in World Liberty Financial. Shaheen summed it up: “The presidency is a public trust, not a private business opportunity.”
What They Say
The report comes from the committee’s Democratic minority staff. It is not an audit, and it lands days before Tuesday’s midterms. In March, the State Department said it had nothing to announce about the transfer, and the White House did not comment. No public response to the new report has been found.
Trump defends the Board. At the United Nations in September, he said its money goes “right to the source” for people in Gaza. The Board’s top official said it doesn’t want money sitting idle before projects are ready.
All 10 senators who signed the report are Democrats. Not one Republican on the committee put their name on it.
The Bottom Line
Congress set this money aside for disaster victims and peacekeepers. The Trump administration tried to hand it to a board that Trump chairs with no end date and that has no public budget. Nobody has set up rules to track the money, and officials couldn’t say whether it could end up paying him. Republicans who run the Senate didn’t sign on to demanding answers. On Tuesday, voters can.
Sources: Senate Foreign Relations Committee Democrats (Sen. Jeanne Shaheen); Semafor (Eleanor Mueller); JNS (Mike Wagenheim); MS NOW (Julia Jester); ABC News; Washington Signal; Board of Peace charter; Federal Register.