For YEARS, activists and human rights groups have questioned and challenged U.S. military aid to the Egyptian government, which looks like up to $1.3 BILLION in “foreign military financing” each year.
Someone should have turned the funding stream off at multiple opportunities — and we may now know one reason it wasn’t, at least during the Trump years: In 2015, Egyptian President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi allegedly gave the then-candidate’s presidential campaign a $10 million boost.
Explosive Washington Post reporting has uncovered a multi-year FBI investigation that found $10 million in cash leaving a state-run Egyptian bank around the same time Donald Trump suddenly loaned his campaign — you guessed it — $10 million.[1]
We're left with 10 million questions. However, we don’t have the answers because Attorney General Bill Barr, one of Trump’s key political appointees, quashed the investigation before it could come to a conclusion.
The idea that Trump may have engaged in a pay-for-play scheme is only the latest in a long list of potential crimes, conflicts of interest, misdeeds, and negligence in U.S. foreign policy — but, nothing will change if we sit on the sidelines. That’s why we’re demanding answers now.
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“Foreign military financing” effectively gives foreign governments U.S.-taxpayer-funded grants to buy U.S.-made weapons and military equipment. This “security” assistance also enables those governments to suppress dissent and ignore human rights in too many countries across the globe — and when it comes to Egypt, abuse by the Sisi regime is well documented.
A 2020 report from our own State Department highlighted the Egyptian government’s significant human rights violations, including forced child labor, extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, and torture.
The situation was already deeply troubling. Now, add in allegations of corruption and a race to the White House.
When you’re talking about corruption in the 2020s, $10 million may not seem like a big deal, but it’s a HUGE sum for a presidential campaign. That kind of money can cover the costs of extensive field operations in key battleground states, allow you to flood television, radio and digital channels in Iowa and New Hampshire with your messaging, or even buy ads during the Super Bowl. With the elections coming down to a handful of electoral college votes, any one of those tactics could have a pivotal payoff— and we deserve to know who’s writing the checks.
We were unequivocal that soon-to-be-former Senator Menendez should resign after allegations arose that he accepted bribes from the Egyptian government last year. That's why we similarly demand a full and thorough investigation of these allegations into Donald Trump by the Department of Justice and Congress.
We refuse to accept a world where U.S. foreign policy is for sale. And if you believe in justice and accountability too, we need you to speak out now.
Together, we’ll remind the world that U.S. foreign policy is NOT up to the highest bidder.
Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team
1. The Washington Post, “$10M cash withdrawal drove secret probe into whether Trump took money from Egypt” (gift link)
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