$15 million of USAID's former budget seized to provide protection for 1 Trump official

From The New Republic:

Office of Budget and Management Director Russell Vought killed USAID, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths, and is now using the money he “saved” to bankroll his security detail.

A Reuters report Friday states that the Project 2025 architect who promised to put federal employees “in trauma” is spending $15 million of former USAID funding–money that would have gone toward fighting HIV, polio, malaria, and other diseases–to pay his U.S. Marshal security through the end of the year.

One source told Reuters that Vought has more than a dozen U.S. marshals in his security detail

Spending vast sums of public money on a far less legitimate cause than it was originally destined for does not mean you saved it.

And it’s such a painful irony that funds that were ‘protecting’ a huge number of very vulnerable people have been seized to protect one very powerful and not particularly vulnerable person. Not surprising given the cruel corruption of the current Trump administration, but still distressing.

Also I can’t imagine US marshals - folk not usually used to provide protection to people in positions like Vought - earn close to over a million dollars a year? ‘Security’ must be expensive.