At a closed-door briefing for members of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Peter Marocco, the director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance and acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said the administration was exploring the question: “Is foreign aid constitutional?” according to several sources familiar with the discussion.
He did not specify how it might be unconstitutional, or exactly who was making the evaluation or how it would be determined.
The hour-long meeting meant that each member only had about 30 seconds to ask a question, which some Democrats said was too short, and called for a public hearing. Devex spoke with several sources with direct knowledge of the meeting, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the closed-door meeting.
About the author
Adva Saldinger@AdvaSal
Adva Saldinger is a Senior Reporter at Devex where she covers development finance, as well as U.S. foreign aid policy. Adva explores the role the private sector and private capital play in development and authors the weekly Devex Invested newsletter bringing the latest news on the role of business and finance in addressing global challenges. A journalist with more than 10 years of experience, she has worked at several newspapers in the U.S. and lived in both Ghana and South Africa.
