ProPublica — an investigative journalist outfit that has received donations from Laurene Powell Jobs and her leftist Emerson Collective, from George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society, and from Crankstart Foundation, Lincoln Project donor Michael Moritz’s family foundation — ran a sob story on Friday about a so-called “Afghan scholar” whose receipt of American funds through the U.S. Institute of Peace was exposed earlier this year by the Department of Government Efficiency.
The liberal publication tried to paint former Taliban official Mohammad Qasem Halimi as a victim, the work he did as “routine” yet “ambiguous,” DOGE’s publicization of Halimi’s financial link to the U.S. as irresponsible, and the DOGE worker who briefly controlled USIP as inept.
The game the establishment media is playing is ‘an insult to our nation.’
ProPublica’s concern-mongering has not found resonance at the Trump State Department, which is aware that Halimi was part of the regime that harbored the terrorists who attacked America on 9/11.
In a Monday statement to Rikki Ratliff-Fellman, executive producer for Glenn Beck, the department defended cutting off Halimi, reiterated that he was indeed a former Taliban member, and underscored that the game the establishment media is playing is “an insult to our nation.”
Quick background
President Donald Trump issued an executive order on Feb. 19 aimed at reducing the scope of the federal bureaucracy.
Among the federal entities that the Trump administration subsequently worked to shutter or scale down was the USIP, a think tank with an apparent problem with political bias and a budget last year of $55 million.
RELATED: America First foreign policy gets an Office of Natural Rights
Taliban extremists in Kabul. Photo by WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images.
The Trump administration canned 10 voting members of the USIP board of directors along with the institute’s president, former Clinton official George Moose; terminated nearly all of the institute’s staff and activities around the world; had elements of the DOGE take over the institute’s headquarters; and transferred USIP’s property to the General Services Administration.
Fired members of the board sued on March 18 to prevent a housecleaning at the USIP, claiming the wind-down was a “lawless assault.” Although an Obama judge declared in May that the changes at the federal entity were “null and void,” the D.C. Court of Appeals stayed the lower court’s ruling.
DOGE highlights Taliban link
Following its takeover of USIP headquarters and just hours after notifying Halimi of his contract’s termination, the DOGE shared some of its findings in March 31 on X, noting, “USIP contracts (now cancelled) include: — $132,000 to Mohammad Qasem Halimi, an ex-Taliban member who was Afghanistan’s former Chief of Protocol.”
According to Halimi’s bio on the Doha Forum site, “he is the former Minister of Hajj and Religious Affairs in Afghanistan” and “was assigned as a Deputy Justice Minister of Technical and Professional Affairs in 2017.”
That bio omits any mention of Halimi’s arrest and detention by American forces from 2002 to 2003 at Bagram Air Base or his time with the Taliban.
Deutsche Welle reported that Halimi went to work for the Taliban in 1998, working first in its foreign ministry, then becoming chief of protocol.
‘This is real. We don’t encounter that in most agencies.’
“I don’t deny that I supported the Taliban,” Halimi told DW. “I had a very good time in the Foreign Office. It was really the best time in my life. Back then, Afghanistan really needed the Taliban.”
Halimi spoke glowingly about Mullah Mohammad Omar, the first leader of the Taliban who offered sanctuary to Islamic terrorist Osama bin Laden both before and after the 9/11 attacks, stating, “I cannot say it any differently today than I said it back then: Afghanistan needed Mullah Omar back then.”
RELATED: The Islamification of America is well under way
Photo by Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Speaking to DW in 2017, Halimi stated, “To this day I still have friendly relations with the Taliban” — an organization Secretary of State Marco Rubio is looking at for a possible foreign terrorist organization designation.
Halimi reportedly switched sides after his release by American forces.
The USIP contract for this friend of the Taliban was mentioned again in an April 1 post on X, which was shared by Elon Musk and ultimately went massively viral.
The caption on the corresponding post read: “With help from the FBI and Metro Police DOGE was able to access the agency and discovered massive fraud, waste and abuse-including payments to Taliban and Iraq.”
The following month, a DOGE staffer told “Jesse Watters Primetime” in a May 1 group interview, “We found that [USIP] were spending money on things like private jets, and they even had a $130,000 contract with a former member of the Taliban. This is real. We don’t encounter that in most agencies.”
Tears for the Taliban
According to ProPublica, Taliban security forces allegedly beat and temporarily imprisoned members of Halimi’s family just days after news of his USIP funding was brought to light.
Blaze News has reached out to Afghanistan’s Ministries of Interior Affairs and Foreign Affairs for comment.
While the alleged violence was perpetrated by Halimi’s former comrades, the liberal publication characterized the Trump administration’s public recognition of Halimi’s Taliban link and exposure of his supposedly benign USIP contract as an “attack” — an attack that former State Department and White House officials supposedly said was “not only absurd, but also dangerous.”
ProPublica, which downplayed Halimi’s Taliban past and highlighted his work with the former Karzai government, complained that after this “attack,” Halimi is now without work and “wonders how he will support his wife and children and whether there’s any chance he can clear his name.”
‘An overwhelming majority of Americans would agree that the Federal Government should not be funding former members of the Taliban when our country is $36T in debt.’
“Why would one of the richest men in the world commit such an act of injustice?” Halimi said to ProPublica. “Sometimes I think that if Elon Musk himself were fully informed about this matter, he would likely be deeply ashamed.”
Whereas the liberal publication proved eager to portray the former Taliban official as a sympathetic character, the publication alternatively characterized Nate Cavanaugh — the former DOGE staffer who worked ardently to expose the rot at USIP, briefly served as its president, and canceled Halimi’s contact — as a privileged incompetent.
The publication noted, for example, that Cavanaugh: is a “28-year-old college dropout”; “had nothing in his background to suggest he would be chosen to wind down an international conflict-resolution agency”; started two companies that haven’t “successfully” taken off; and “comes from a wealthy family.”
Cavanaugh — whom Blaze News has reached out to for comment — apparently made no apologies for carrying out the task President Donald Trump mandated him to do.
“An overwhelming majority of Americans would agree that the Federal Government should not be funding former members of the Taliban when our country is $36T in debt,” said Cavanaugh.
Cavanaugh’s successor similarly appears not to be panged by ProPublica’s sympathies for the Taliban alumnus.
Darren Beattie, undersecretary for public diplomacy at the State Department and acting president of USIP, said in a statement to Ratliff-Fellman, “Under President Trump’s February 19 Executive Order, the United States Institute of Peace was directed to reduce operations to its statutory minimum — ending, among other things, a contract with former Taliban member Mohammad Qasem Halimi.”
“The idea of funding former Taliban members on one hand, and publicly lamenting the Taliban’s success in reducing Afghanistan’s opium production on the other, highlights the schizophrenic and dangerous approach to ‘conflict resolution’ adopted by USIPs previous leadership,” continued Beattie. “The fact that the establishment media defends using taxpayer dollars this way is an insult to our nation and the heroes who have fought to protect it.”
Beattie added, “Above all, this underscores President Trump’s resolve to end the weaponization of government, cut off funding to adversaries, and shut down reckless so-called peace-building programs that end up undermining our national security.”
Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!
Taliban, Usip, U.s. institute of peace, Doge, Mohammad qasem halimi, Terrorist, Islam, Islamist, Afghanistan, Contract, Elon musk, Nate cavanaugh, Propublica, Politics
