Well, well, well. If this saga at the African Development Foundation doesn’t read like the script to a Netflix docudrama called Bureaucrats Gone Wild, then nothing does.
Here we have a government agency, supposedly championing economic development in Africa, that’s actually been doubling as a personal piggy bank for a scandal-soaked official. But the real kicker? The minute someone tried to clean house—namely, President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (yes, DOGE, and no, we’re not making that up)—the usual suspects cried authoritarianism, all while hiding the skeletons in the file cabinets.
Meet Mathieu Zahui, the agency’s CFO. This is the guy who wouldn’t even let DOGE auditors through the door. And now we know why: because he was allegedly steering no-bid contracts worth nearly a million taxpayer dollars to a buddy in Kenya who just happened to send him mysterious wire transfers afterward. In Washington, they call that “a coincidence.” Anywhere else, they call it a bribe.
Zahui, let’s not forget, was a man who rose to this critical financial post after a bankruptcy and foreclosure. That’s right—he lost his home and then was put in charge of your tax dollars. If that doesn’t perfectly sum up the genius of federal hiring practices under the swamp’s rule, I don’t know what does.
Now the friend in question, one Mr. Maina Gakure, is an old pal from their days at the VA in San Diego. Gakure, ever the entrepreneur, took advantage of a minority contracting preference program to launch a business—out of a Virginia home, no less—and then conveniently moved to Kenya to qualify for African-only grants. The result? Over $800,000 in no-bid contracts from Zahui’s office, including a $350,000 travel deal during COVID lockdowns, when the only travel happening was from the bedroom to the fridge.
Let’s pause here. The contract was for travel. During COVID. When nobody traveled. But wait—Zahui later claimed it was for IT services, which is interesting because the company didn’t do IT. They had to subcontract it out. Of course, that too is a violation of federal contracting rules, but why let that ruin a good grift?
Earlier this week, a briefing with Pete Marocco (the architect of Trump’s illegal dismantling of USAID) left us with more questions than answers. Worse, he left early to take DOGE staffers and federal marshals to try and forcibly close the U.S. African Development Foundation. pic.twitter.com/Sxyf2gqL2g
— Senator Brian Schatz (@SenBrianSchatz) March 8, 2025
And just when you think it can’t get shadier, enter offshore bank accounts. Yep, Zahui reportedly dropped $2 million into a Ghanaian bank account without proper signatures. When pressed, he claimed it was part of “funds outside of treasury”—basically, government slush money stashed across Africa like we’re playing some international version of hide-and-seek with federal cash. And let’s not forget that his friend’s U.S. company took in nearly $90,000 in American COVID relief funds while the African arm was cashing in on “grants” and contracts across the ocean. Double-dipping with your money. What a legacy.
The real scandal, though, might be the bureaucratic protection racket that allowed this to fester for years. Whistleblowers were waving red flags all the way back to 2021. Violations were documented. Emails were sent. But apparently, unless you’re spilling hot coffee on someone or misgendering a parking sign, no one in the federal apparatus cares. The system protects its own—until someone like Trump shows up with a mop and suddenly he’s the villain for wanting to look under the rug.
When DOGE finally sent U.S. Marshals to secure the building, you’d think they were staging a coup the way the left reacted. “Is this a peaceful transition of power?” cried the same people who wanted to remove Trump via bureaucratic insubordination and lawfare. No, Senator Schatz, it’s what adults do when a petulant child with a key refuses to open the front door.
And just to really tie a bow on this mess, when President Trump finally pulled the plug—dismantling the African Development Foundation and USAID in the same swoop—the pearl clutching began. “But development aid is essential to our foreign policy!” Sure. Except when it’s lining the pockets of grifters and enriching the friends of broke bureaucrats.
Senator Risch said it best in 2023: when you ignore corruption in any development program, you tarnish the whole system. Americans aren’t losing trust in foreign aid because of Trump. They’re losing trust because the swamp can’t stop laundering virtue through shady contracts and secret wire transfers.
And now, three months into the Trump reboot, two of the worst offenders are gone. That’s not fascism. That’s accountability.
