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Comment by stonogo | Hacker News Reader

Why has nobody been prosecuted, then? Why was USAID's detailed budget website removed by the current administration? If crimes were being committed, why has there been no accountability?

I keep hearing about all this corruption, but nobody seems to be in jail about it.

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Accountability is shutting down the agency and shuttering the programs. They did that.

The point of a slush fund is that the funds weren't allocated for specific programs by law, they were discretionary. So, while technically not illegal, they are frivolous and unethical. Not to mention, how would half the country and most of the world react if Trump's DOJ started arresting the people involved? They'd call him a tyrant and burn more Teslas.

What exactly do think the Federal Budget is? Discretionary budgeting within USAID is a tiny, tiny amount. Even the items they cherry picked as being wasteful, many were from the State Department (Ambassadors has some discretionary funds to support the local arts.)

Congress decides how taxes are spent, not the Executive Branch, and certainly not the accountable to no-one DOGE.

https://apnews.com/article/usaid-funding-trump-musk-misinfor...

No, if a project does not work then you shut it down. If someone is stealing money then you prosecute them for theft. That's what the DOJ is for. There are plenty of instances of the DOJ prosecuting government employees for crimes.

So now, instead, we just have to take some rando's word for it that bad stuff was happening but nobody's going to jail over it because it was "technically not illegal"? And you call that accountability?

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