Shaheen blocks part of grant slate before fiscal deadline
The Trump administration is pressing to redirect $176.9 million from the State Department’s flagship Human Rights and Democracy Fund toward 43 awards that critics say will bolster rightwing and conservative causes around the world while likely angering US allies over interference in internal politics, according to documents reviewed by The Guardian. The proposed slate includes a $40 million grant for an anti-communism consortium led by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation, support for a group advancing white Afrikaner rights in South Africa, a $1 million campaign against Brazil’s supreme court, and programs rewarding ideological allies in Europe who protect “western civilisational norms,” the newspaper reported. The proposed awards account for most of the $205 million Congress appropriated for the HRDF for the current fiscal year.
The largest single award — $40 million — would go to a consortium led by the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation (VOC), an anti-communist nonprofit. A State Department vetting document reviewed by The Guardian records $96,997 in prior VOC contracts over the past five years, all in fiscal year 2022, and notes that the foundation was vetted in 2019 in connection with tickets to its gala. The document identifies Andrew Bremberg, a former Trump White House domestic policy adviser and former US ambassador to the UN European office, as a “senior leader” of the foundation.
In July, ProPublica reported that Samuel Samson, a 27-year-old deputy assistant secretary overseeing the new grants, was linked to senior members of VOC through his studies at the Christian conservative Hillsdale College graduate program. A State Department official told ProPublica at the time that the relationship had nothing to do with the grant. Samson has described the US and Europe as partners in a “shared civilizational struggle” and toured Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia last December — all four countries floated to receive a $2 million award to counter migration weaponized by Russia and Belarus, according to the document. Samson also criticized NGOs that previous administrations had worked with for promoting what he called radical concepts, including gender theory and DEI. ProPublica first reported that Trump officials had drawn up at least a dozen no-bid grants aimed at rightwing and anti-immigration causes in Europe and advocates for white South Africans.
The proposed slate also includes a $1 million award titled “Countering Lawfare and Censorship in Brazil” to fund civil-society groups opposing what the document calls judicial overreach and censorship by Brazil’s supreme court. The Trump administration last year sanctioned Justice Alexandre de Moraes following lobbying by Eduardo Bolsonaro, the son of the former president.
A separate $2 million program titled “Promoting Western Civilization Allies” would be limited to implementers who do not subscribe to “ideologically weaponized accounts of human rights, such as gender ideology” and who embrace “anti-communist” and “natural rights” approaches, according to the document, with possible recipients in Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Balkans.
Other awards on the slate include $2 million for early-warning networks protecting Christians in Nigeria, a grant to document “democratic backsliding” in Europe tied to “mass and illegal migration” and legislation by “supra-national entities,” and a $1 million journalism consortium that would push back against designations of “trusted” media outlets.
A $3 million no-bid award would go to the Jobs Foundation, a UK group run by Matthew Elliott, who led the Vote Leave campaign. The grant, titled “Countering Overregulation to Advance American Investment,” would promote a “common good capitalism index” and pro-business policy, including, the document says, how the foundation promoted Brexit as a chance to cut the UK’s climate regulations.
Two other UK proposals have already been dropped from the slate. A $5 million no-bid grant to the Free Speech Union, the British group founded by Toby Young, has been marked “withdrawn” in the document. The grant would have paid the group to campaign against online safety and hate speech laws, including Britain’s Online Safety Act, a law passed under the Conservatives in 2023 and enforced by Ofcom. The law’s age-verification rules, which took effect last year, have drawn constant criticism from the Trump administration, which cast them as censorship. When the award was first reported in July, Young said the group had never applied for or received US government money, though Trump officials had reportedly met with the group during a European tour late last year. A $7 million no-bid award to 878, a thinktank whose stated missions include restoring Judeo-Christian culture and “ending mass migration and deporting illegal immigrants,” was abandoned in July after pushback from Congress. That group was founded by Jacob Rees-Mogg, who served as Brexit opportunities minister and business secretary before losing his seat at the 2024 election, and now presents on GB News.
The three proposed UK awards would have directed a combined $15 million in US taxpayer money to groups run by two sitting Conservative peers and a former cabinet minister, on issues from online safety law to migration that are live in British politics, The Guardian reported.
The Guardian reports that the awards were personally lobbied for by members of the Trump administration, reflecting interests that include JD Vance’s warnings of the collapse of traditional western values in Europe and Stephen Miller’s push against immigration and to support white minorities in countries like South Africa. “The story for me is the high-level – including White House-directed – attention on these programs,” a person familiar with the discussions over the democracy awards told the newspaper. “These awards have been briefed at the highest levels of the department and have buy-in from the White House.”
Senator Shaheen has put a partial hold on some of the controversial awards, setting up a standoff with the State Department ahead of the September 30 deadline — the end of the fiscal year, when unobligated funds typically lapse. “Congress appropriated money for the democracy fund on a bipartisan basis to support defenders of human rights, to assist victims of human rights violations and to instead promote the growth of democracy abroad,” Shaheen said. “The Trump administration’s proposals would use taxpayer funds to promote far-right organizations and programs in established democracies. This is a waste of resources and undermines United States values and relations with democratic partners, including allies in Europe.”
The State Department did not comment on individual grants. It told The Guardian the programs were still in “active deliberation,” that awardees would meet guidelines for federal grants, and that all programming would undergo a “standard and rigorous vetting process by grant professionals.” A department official added: “Our programming in Europe aims to support our European allies in defending those rights and principles, along with their civilizational self-confidence and sovereignty from those who seek to undermine them. The national security strategy highlights our priorities in Europe which includes advancing political liberty, promoting free speech, and collaborating with European partners to jointly support European revitalization and civilizational self-confidence.”