$40 million weekly cash shipments from US are stabilizing Afghanistan’s Taliban government

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

It is common knowledge that the Afghanistan withdrawal was a complete disaster, but lots of people do not know that the Biden administration has been sending cash to the Taliban every week since then.

When the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, our troops were ordered to leave behind $7 billion worth of military equipment which ended up in the hands of the Taliban. According to the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), the Taliban also likely gained access to approximately $57.6 million in funds that the United States had provided to the former Afghan government. But that was just the beginning of the financial atrocities.

“According to an August 2023 World Bank report, the UN has purchased, transported, and transferred $2.9 billion in U.S. currency to Afghanistan since August 2021,” said a SIGAR report published in January. “This included $1.8 billion provided in 2022 and $1.1 billion provided in 2023, as of August 2023.”

“The U.S. is the largest international donor to Afghanistan, having provided about $2.6 billion in funding to the UN, other international organizations (PIOs), and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Afghanistan since August 2021,” said the SIGAR report.

The U.N., which handles the transportation of these payments, claims it needs to send cash because the country does not have the infrastructure to wire funds.

I recently hosted a guest on my podcast who goes by the name of “Legend” to talk about these payments. He is an Afghan American and former U.S. Army noncommissioned officer who has deployed to Afghanistan multiple times, and who traveled to Kabul during the Afghanistan withdrawal to rescue individuals left behind.

Legend confirmed: “Yes, the money does end up feeding and supporting the Taliban.” He explained that the United Nations flies the cash from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan Central Bank which is managed by a terrorist who is on an active U.S. sanctions list. That bank then holds an “auction” where groups bid to take those dollars and convert it to the local currency. Every week the winner of that auction is someone associated with the Haqqani Network, a terror group with ties to Al-Qaeda.

These terrorists take the money and convert it to Afghani to distribute. Some of that money stays with the Haqqani Network, some goes to the terrorists running the bank, and the rest of the money is given to the local implementing parties or non-government organizations (NGOs).

However, the Taliban is the group handing out NGO licenses in Afghanistan. If a Taliban sympathizer asks for an NGO license, they get it. So, many of these groups send money directly to the Taliban or to support the families of suicide bombers.

Legend also said if the United States suspended these weekly payments, we would see signs of the Taliban and other Afghanistan-based terror groups crumbling within a year. The $40 million weekly cash shipments have stabilized the Afghani, making the Taliban’s newly printed currency the world’s best performer, beating the U.S. dollar in September 2023.

It is not like this administration doesn’t know who they’re dealing with. President Joe Biden was a senator and Vice President Kamala Harris was an attorney in the 1990s when the Taliban ruled Afghanistan with an iron fist. During that time, women were stripped of their rights and treated as prisoners, and the Taliban provided safe haven to al-Qaeda in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks.

When the Taliban took over Afghanistan in 2021, their spokesperson said: “Nobody will be harmed in Afghanistan. Of course, there is a huge difference between us now and 20 years ago.” It was a laughable statement, and no sane person should have believed it. Terrorists don’t change.

The Taliban’s return to oppression started slow. First, they banned women from driving more than 45 miles without a male relative. Then they stopped them from going to school. Then they banned women’s faces and voices from being displayed in public, and prohibited women from looking at men they are not related to. These women are now prisoners in their own country as much as they were in the 1990s. And we are funding their oppressors.

The fact that a single penny of American tax dollars has ended up in the hands of terrorists is a disgrace. I introduced a bill that would do three things to stop it:

First, my bill states the policy of the United States is to oppose support to the Taliban. It also calls for a report on any foreign countries that have given support to the Taliban and calls for the secretary of State to develop a strategy to discourage foreign countries from providing support. Second, it calls for a report on cash assistance programs in Afghanistan and the safeguards in place to prevent the Taliban from accessing it. Third, it requires a report on the Afghan Fund and the Afghanistan central bank and what controls are in place to make sure those funds are not diverted or misused.

The House passed my bill earlier this year, but unfortunately the Senate won’t vote on it. This should be a bipartisan issue, and we need to keep pushing for it.

Many people lost everything because of the Afghanistan withdrawal. Women lost their freedom, Afghan citizens lost their lives, and 13 U.S. servicemembers were killed. One of those servicemembers was my constituent, Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss. He had recently finished a deployment in Afghanistan when he heard we were evacuating and he volunteered to go back to help. He was 23 years old when he was killed.

We need to honor their sacrifice as best as we can. That starts by halting the payments we have been sending to the Taliban. No more American money for terrorists.

Rep. Tim Burchett has represented Tennessee’s 2^nd District in the U.S. House of Representatives since January 2019. Prior to that he served for eight years as mayor of Knox County, 12 years in the state senate and four years in the state house.

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CIA Offers To Payout Entire Agency: REPORT

Published on February 5, 2025

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Hailey Gomez

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reportedly offered payouts to its entire workforce Tuesday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The CIA has apparently become the first intelligence agency to offer its employees a way out, as they were reportedly offered a bid to quit their jobs in exchange for roughly eight months of pay and benefits, the outlet reported. Trump administration officials told the outlet that the move is a signal to help those who oppose President Donald Trump’s agenda find other work.

In addition to the offer, the WSJ reported that an aide to CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the agency is freezing its hiring for job seekers with conditional offers, with some expected to be rescinded if the agents don’t have the background necessary for the agency’s new direction.

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“Director Ratcliffe is moving swiftly to ensure the CIA workforce is responsive to the Administration’s national security priorities. These moves are part of a holistic strategy to infuse the Agency with renewed energy, provide opportunities for rising leaders to emerge, and better position the CIA to deliver on its mission,” a CIA spokesperson told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Ratcliffe was confirmed as the CIA’s new leader on Jan. 23, after the Senate approved him in a 74-25 vote. In his opening remarks during his confirmation process, Ratcliffe said he would adhere to the CIA’s core mission and focus on threats from the Chinese Communist Party.

“We will collect intelligence — especially human intelligence — in every corner of the globe, no matter how dark or difficult,” Ratcliffe said in his testimony. “We will produce insightful, objective, all-source analysis, never allowing political or personal biases to cloud our judgement or infect our products. We will conduct covert action at the direction of the president, going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”

The move from the CIA comes a week after the U.S. Office of Personnel Management released an email on Jan. 28, showing that millions of federal employees were offered deferred compensation through Sept. 30, provided they submit their resignation notices by Feb. 6.

“If you choose to remain in your current position, we thank you for your renewed focus on serving the American people to the best of your abilities and look forward to working together as part of an improved federal workforce,” the email said. “At this time, we cannot give you full assurance regarding the certainty of your position or agency but should your position be eliminated you will be treated with dignity and will be afforded the protections in place for such positions.”

Daily Caller

‘Extraordinary’: El Salvador Agrees To Take In Any Gangbangers, Convicted Criminals Deported Out Of US

Published on February 5, 2025

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Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele and then-U.S. President Donald Trump, Sept. 25, 2019.

From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Jason Hopkins

El Salvador President Nayib Bukele has agreed to imprison convicted criminals from any country that have been ordered deported out of the United States.

The extraordinary offer was made after Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited Bukele in San Salvador, the country’s capital city, to discuss a range of bilateral issues. The Central American leader not only agreed to take back his own country’s deportees, but also offered his “mega-prison” to house MS-13 members, Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangbangers and any other criminal from around the world — including U.S. citizens.

The offer could prove crucial for the Trump White House as it moves forward with its detention and deportation operation after the unprecedented border crisis that was sparked during the previous administration. The 8.5 million border encounters that occurred at the U.S.-Mexico border during President Joe Biden’s era resulted in an unprecedented growth of the country’s illegal migrant population.

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“We have offered the United States of America the opportunity to outsource part of its prison system,” Bukele posted on social media Monday night. “We are willing to take in only convicted criminals (including convicted U.S. citizens) into our mega-prison (CECOT) in exchange for a fee.”

“The fee would be relatively low for the U.S. but significant for us, making our entire prison system sustainable,” he continued.

The State Department confirmed the offer in a statement, adding that the “extraordinary gesture” has never been extended before by any other country.

“President Bukele agreed to take back all Salvadoran MS-13 gang members who are in the United States unlawfully,” said State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce. “He also promised to accept and incarcerate violent illegal immigrants, including members of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, but also criminal illegal migrants from any country.”

The agreement follows an announcement in January by President Donald Trump that he would be utilizing a section of Guantanamo Bay to detain “the worst criminal illegal aliens.” The president said he would be sending up to 30,000 migrants with deportation orders to the Cuba-based naval base.

Previous administrations have utilized Guantanamo Bay for migrant detention in the past. The Clinton administration processed thousands of Haitians and housed Cuban asylum seekers at the naval base during the 1990s, and the Obama administration considered similar measures after the 2010 Haiti earthquake and the Biden administration also mulled the idea.

El Salvador, where the international crime syndicate MS-13 has a major presence, has long been plagued with violent crime. However, Bukele has made incredible strides in reducing his country’s crime rate since assuming office in 2019 through a no-nonsense policy of mass incarceration.

The Central American leader oversaw a 70% reduction of the country’s murder rate in 2023. When asked by the Daily Caller News Foundation in February 2024 how the U.S. could reduce crime rates in major cities, Bukele simply said “incarcerate the criminals.”

Sending deportees to El Salvador and Guantanamo Bay potentially solves two major hurdles for the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement agenda: recalcitrant countries that refuse to accept their deported citizens back and limited Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention space. Racking up available bed space by the thousands can prevent ICE detention centers from being forced to release illegal migrants back into the community due to overcrowding.

Trump successfully coerced the Colombian president into taking back his county’s deportees after threatening him with stiff tariffs, and the Venezuelan government has also recently agreed to begin accepting their repatriated citizens.

Several high-profile criminal migrants were detained and released at the border before going on to commit heinous crimes in the U.S., such as Laken Riley’s killer Jose Ibarra and 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray’s alleged killers. More detention space can potentially help federal immigration authorities avoid releasing illegal migrants from custody.

Bukele “has agreed to the most unprecedented, extraordinary, extraordinary migratory agreement anywhere in the world,” Rubio said to the media after meeting with him at his lakeside country house outside San Salvador.

The historic offer from El Salvador immediately followed Rubio’s trip to Panama, in which he successfully prevented the key Central American country from renewing an infrastructure agreement with China, reducing the communist country’s influence in the region.