Rand Paul’s valiant efforts to protect religious liberties, reduce corruption, and hold the State Department accountable
Christopher Tremoglie
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Last week, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a business meeting regarding S. 2043, the Department of State Reauthorization Act of 2023. During the meeting, multiple senators offered amendments to the act, including Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY), Ben Cardin (D-MD), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Ted Cruz (R-TX), and Mitt Romney (R-UT).
Out of all the proposals, however, Paul’s was arguably the most important, for he offered three amendments that focused on cleaning up the mess that is the State Department and ending any domestic and international corruption.
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Among the objectives of Paul’s legislation was to protect religious freedom, free speech, and halt providing foreign aid to corrupt countries listed on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index. It’s a noble pursuit that the State Department has needed for quite some time. Consider the specifics of Paul’s three proposed amendments.
Paul’s first proposed amendment focused on canceling aid to governments that knowingly and purposefully violated human rights and restricted religious freedom by murdering people under the guise of capital punishment for supposed violations of anti-apostasy, anti-blasphemy, and inter-faith marriage laws.
“My amendment will protect religious freedom and prohibit U.S. foreign assistance to any country that imposes the death penalty or life imprisonment based on anti-blasphemy, anti-apostasy laws, or prohibitions of inter-faith marriages,” Paul said, regarding the amendment. “Providing U.S. taxpayer-funded aid to countries that kill or imprison their citizens due to religious differences is repugnant. It is antithetical to the core principles of our nation. America’s founders had the wisdom and foresight to enshrine freedom of religion as a fundamental right in our Constitution. This right is a cornerstone of our Republic and one that’s cherished by all Americans.”
Next, Paul’s second amendment would restrict “State Department employees from directing social media platforms to censor any speech that is protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and by requiring each recipient of a grant awarded by the Department to certify that it will not designate any creator of news as a source of misinformation or disinformation.” Given the revelations of the Twitter Files and other accounts of egregiously limiting speech, the importance of Paul’s second proposal is abundantly clear.
“My amendment is designed to prevent State Department censorship of speech protected by the First Amendment. Over the past several years, the U.S. government has taken upon itself the task of protecting Americans from ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation,’” Paul said. “‘Misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ are statements and messages that the government, in its self-appointed role as arbiter of truth, decides are false and that have what the government judges are harmful effects.”
“Just by labeling speech ‘misinformation’ or ‘disinformation’ does not mean that it is not protected by the First Amendment. Because this is such an obvious, blatant violation of the Constitution, the government often masks its role by funding non-profit organizations whose purpose is to identify ‘misinformation’ and ‘disinformation’ and feed their analysis to tech companies to take action,” Paul stated. “And the State Department — whose authorizing legislation we are debating today — is no exception to this practice.”
Last, but certainly not least, was Paul’s third proposal. This centered on our country’s fiscal and moral obligations. As many people know, the government has been endlessly funding the conflict in Ukraine with billions of dollars of taxpayer money. If adopted, Paul’s amendment would prohibit sending foreign aid to any country listed in the bottom 50% of the most up-to-date version of Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index — a list that incidentally included Ukraine.
“My amendment prohibits the State Department from providing foreign aid to corrupt countries. The U.S. has squandered billions of dollars in this fashion over the years, including in Iraq and Afghanistan. SIGIR and SIGAR have documented in detail how corrupt Iraqi and Afghan officials have profited from U.S. largesse,” Paul stated. “This is not only a waste of money that the United States does not have to spend. It also reinforces the corruption endemic in these countries by providing more cream from which to skim off the top.”
Paul elaborated further by using Ukraine as an example.
“Allow me to provide a present-day example from Ukraine, another corrupt country. Since the war in Ukraine began, Congress has appropriated over 113 billion in assistance to Ukraine. $22.9 billion of that is direct budget support — straight cash — to the Ukrainian government,” Paul said. “Ukraine uses this money for all sorts of purposes, like salaries for civil servants and payments for social assistance and pensions. This money is funneled through the World Bank, and there is very limited, if any, on-the-ground oversight.”
“Ukraine is currently ranked 116th out of 180 countries in the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index. According to the index, 23% of public service users reported paying a bribe in the past 12 months. Embezzlement of public funds is commonplace, as we saw in January 2023 — well after U.S. funds had started to flow into Ukrainian coffers — Ukrainian officials were caught selling goods at inflated prices to the Ukrainian government,” Paul said. “Ukraine has struggled in the past to gain IMF funding due to corruption concerns, including a case of more than $5 billion disappearing from a Ukrainian bank tied to a Zelensky ally.”
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Why should the United States continue to waste billions of taxpayer dollars on almost guaranteed fraud? These funds should be spent on much more pressing matters and critical issues than where they are currently being diverted to. Paul’s amendment would bring fiscal sanity and accountability to such reckless spending.
“My amendment is simple: it will prohibit the State Department from providing aid to the countries in the bottom 50% of the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index,” Paul said. “This is madness, and we should take action to stop it.”