Mike Benz Exposes How USAID Funds State-Sponsored Hit Pieces to Crush Political Opponents

This is wild.

Former State Department official Mike Benz, an expert on cyber policy, censorship, and information warfare, appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience Wednesday and dropped jaw-dropping insights into USAID’s absurd abuse of US tax dollars.

According to Benz, USAID has been funneling taxpayer dollars into so-called investigative journalism, but the real goal isn’t transparency—it is control.

“Everything they do is a hit piece about an instance of corruption that can be used by prosecutors in the area to arrest the political opponents of the State Department,” Benz explained.

USAID’s program, officially called Strengthening Transparency and Accountability through Investigative Reporting, claims to promote a free press. But Benz revealed its true purpose is to ruin people’s lives and go after political targets in order to change the policies of foreign governments from the inside.

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For a mere investment of $20 million, USAID’s state-sponsored hit pieces were able to:

• Generate at least $4.5 billion in fines against targets of these hit pieces.

• Influence over 548 policy changes across foreign governments and private sectors.

USAID justified these programs under the term “capacity building,” which Benz warned is a red flag. “Now, this is the phrase everybody has to know. Capacity building is what this is all built under. That means pumping up the Blob’s assets,” he explained.

And USAID wasn’t just funding biased reporting. They were actively reshaping foreign governments. Benz revealed 548 policy changes resulted from these state-sponsored media attacks, which he suggested were for the “furtherance of USAID’s or the State Department’s foreign policy goals.”

Think about what that means. The U.S. government is secretly funding media outlets to push narratives, destroy political opponents, and manipulate foreign policy, all under the guise of investigative journalism.

The question is – if they’re doing this overseas, how much of it is happening at home?

Watch the full conversation below: