Isaac Stanley-Becker writes:

If the U.S. Agency for International Development is a front for the CIA, we’re about to find out all about it. A new official inside the agency is prepared to blow the lid off the whole conspiracy.

That official is Mike Benz, a right-wing influencer who popularized the notion that Taylor Swift is a secret NATO asset and once wrote, under a pseudonym, “I want white identity politics to grow like wildfire.” Benz rose to prominence last year by spreading fantastical claims about USAID, portraying the agency as a terrorist organization or a spy operation—or both. His comments caught the attention of Elon Musk, setting into motion the dramatic dismantling of the agency. USAID, Benz argued earlier this year, “is notorious for funding the darkest, most controversial, most horrifying projects known to all of mankind.”

So it was somewhat surprising for staff remaining at the decimated agency when Benz strode into their office last week. U.S. officials who spoke with me on the condition of anonymity to describe Benz’s position said he’s a special government employee, a type of executive-branch appointee brought in to perform important services for a limited period of time. Musk had the same status when his DOGE initiative took a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy.

Benz’s mission, officials told me, is to use the agency’s archives to substantiate his own allegations about USAID’s pernicious influence in the world—its role in foreign regime change, its promotion of “state-sponsored hit pieces,” and its suppression of free speech. He’s fixated, for example, on communications among USAID staff following the 2024 election, which he has told associates hold the key to the agency’s wrongdoing. But his ambitions are ultimately broader, officials said. He wants to prove that USAID has secretly incited so-called color revolutions, a pejorative used often by Russian President Vladimir Putin to blame Western powers for popular uprisings in post-Soviet countries. [Continue reading…]