DOGE attack leads to mass layoffs at institute headed by Dan Sullivan
A pro-democracy institute headed by Sen. Dan Sullivan will have to lay off nearly all of its staff beause of Elon Musk’s attack on the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Washington Post reported.
The International Republican Institute has laid off two-thirds of its staff and more cutbacks are coming, a source told the Post. Another report says that the institute has closed more than 20 overseas offices.
Musk has made up a story that USAID is a “criminal organization” and a “radical left political psy op” that steals tax dollars.
Sullivan, a charter member of the so-called DOGE caucus in the Senate that supports Musk, has said nothing about the mass layoffs at the institute he has headed since the death of Sen. John McCain.
Musk has also attacked another entity that supports Sullivan’s group, the National Endowment for Democracy, as corrupt and guilty of unnamed crimes.
NED is another bipartisan group that dates from the Reagan era and exists to promote democracy.
“One of the group’s main grantees is the International Republican Institute, a 42-year-old organization whose activities include election monitoring in foreign countries and supporting anti-corruption efforts overseas. Its board includes eight current or former GOP lawmakers,” Politico reported.
Sullivan and other Republicans in Congress have not pushed back against Musk or challenged his lies.
Sullivan did not reply. He kept walking, which is one of his go-to moves when he is not posing for Fox News and doesn’t know what to say.
“We’ll get back to you if you have questions,” he said, walking away, Alaska Public Media reported.
Another reporter posed a question about cuts to the National Institutes of Health.
“I haven’t seen it,” Sullivan said, using one of his other go-to moves when he doesn’t know what to say. “I’ll comment when I see it.”
Sullivan, chairman of the International Republican Institute, should have a lot to say about Musk shutting down most of the institute’s operations, but he doesn’t.
Wall Street Journal editorial writer Kim Strassel, who lives some of the time in Wasilla, complains that Republican senators are too eager to defend “home-state pork” and cites the International Republican Institute as evidence of hypocrisy.
“Republicans are grumbling about Mr. Musk’s attacks on the National Endowment for Democracy, which funds among other things, the International Republican Institute (whose board sports current and former GOP members),” Strassel writes.
Delaware Sen. Chris Coon has denounced the ban on foreign aid and the Musk/Trump opposition to support for pro-democracy organizations.
“With urgent upcoming elections, the International Republican Institute and the National Democratic Institute are frozen in their activities and forced to lay off or furlough their workforce,” said Coons.
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