Following the uncovering of a massive bribery scandal at USAID, the Small Business Administration (SBA) is ordering a full audit of all government contracting officers who have exercised grant-awarding authority under the agency’s business development program over the last 15 years.

In a letter obtained by Fox News Digital, SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler said the scale of the USAID fraud is a ‘damning reflection of systemic failures in oversight and accountability.’ She further said that the fraud ‘was not an isolated incident.’

In response, Loeffler instructed Associate Administrator Tre Pennie, who oversees government contracts awarded by SBA, to ‘act decisively’ to crack down on any potential similar abuses in the agency.

Loeffler instructed Pennie to immediately initiate a full-scale audit of the agency’s awarding officers back to 2010.

‘The role of federal government contracting officers is not ceremonial or self-dealing; rather, it is a position of immense authority and fiduciary responsibility,’ said Loeffler. ‘The contracting process must be transparent and built on merit, not personal gain.’

This comes after USAID, an agency tasked with administering civilian foreign aid, was essentially dismantled by the DOGE waste, fraud and abuse cuts made under Elon Musk and President Donald Trump. The move was met with massive protests from Democrats who claimed that cutting USAID would impoverish and harm recipients across the globe.

Despite claims of how much good the agency was doing, it was recently discovered that an influential contracting officer at USAID named Roderick Watson was able to carry out a massive, long-term bribery scheme dating all the way back to 2013.

Watson, 57, pleaded guilty to ‘bribery of a public official,’ according to a DOJ press release.

According to the DOJ, Watson sold his influence starting in 2013, with contractors Walter Barnes, owner of Vistant, and Darryl Britt, owner of Apprio, funneling payoffs through subcontractor Paul Young to hide their tracks. 

A DOJ press release said that Britt and Barnes ‘regularly funneled bribes to Watson, including cash, laptops, thousands of dollars in tickets to a suite at an NBA game, a country club wedding, downpayments on two residential mortgages, cellular phones, and jobs for relatives. The bribes were also often concealed through electronic bank transfers falsely listing Watson on payroll, incorporated shell companies, and false invoices.’

The statement said that Watson is alleged to have received bribes ‘valued at more than approximately $1 million as part of the scheme.’

Vistant was awarded in November 2023, as part of a joint venture, a contract worth up to $800 million with one of the focuses of that contract being to address ‘a variety of issues affecting the root causes of irregular migration from Central America to the United States,’ an issue that President Joe Biden tasked then-Vice President Kamala Harris with during his presidency.

Several days later, that contract was canceled after USAID published a notice that said Vistant was excluded from government contracting due to ‘evidence of conduct of a lack of business honesty or integrity.’

The joint venture then successfully sued the government over being put on that exclusion list and was re-awarded the contract and given a $10,000 payment in August 2024. 

In her letter, Loeffler said the USAID scandal ‘represents a collapse in the very safeguards that are supposed to protect American taxpayer dollars and ensure fair access for legitimate small businesses.’

She slammed the Biden administration for awarding the $800 million contract to Vistant despite the business being labeled by USAID as lacking ‘honesty and integrity.’

‘The fact that a federal official was able to act as the linchpin of a persistent, large-scale fraud operation speaks to a failure in internal controls and a breakdown in the contracting environment that demands immediate correction,’ said Loeffler.

She said that SBA plays a ‘critical role’ in federal contracting and ‘will no longer stand by while abuses are perpetrated at the expense of taxpayers and deserving small businesses.’

Loeffler said the agency’s audit will begin with high-dollar and limited competition contracts within SBA’s 8(a) business development program. The findings will be referred to the U.S. Office of Inspector General (OIG) and the DOJ.

Any officials or businesses found in violation of the SBA’s ethical standards or who have committed criminal misconduct will be referred to the appropriate authorities and SBA will assist the DOJ in recovering misappropriated funds, Loeffler said.

‘We will not allow public trust to be quietly eroded by backdoor deals and unchecked discretion,’ said Loeffler.

‘We owe it to America’s small businesses to get this right,’ she went on. ‘Your office has the authority, and now the mandate, to act decisively.’ 

A year ago Friday, President Joe Biden took the debate stage against then-Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and drove one of the final nails in his reelection campaign’s coffin as traditional allies turned their backs on the 46th president and subsequently rallied to replace him as the frontrunner against Trump. 

Biden entered the reelection cycle already racked by claims and concerns that his mental acuity had slipped and he was not mentally fit to continue serving as president, which was underscored by special counsel Robert Hur’s report in February 2024 that rejected criminal charges against Biden for possessing classified materials, citing he was ‘a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.’ 

The then-president spent days preparing for the debate from Camp David in Maryland, as videos of his recent public gaffes and missteps haunted the campaign in the days leading up to the debate. Trump, meanwhile, led the charge in demanding Biden take a drug test to prove he was not taking performance-enhancing supplements ahead of the highly anticipated event. 

Biden brushed off accusations he was using any performance-enhancing supplements, including mocking Trump’s challenge that he take a drug test in an X post showing him drinking a can of water. 

‘I don’t know what they’ve got in these performance enhancers, but I’m feeling pretty jacked up. Try it yourselves, folks. See you in a bit,’ the X post read, accompanied by a photo of Biden drinking a can of water that read ‘Get real, Jack. It’s just water.’

Just minutes later, Biden would deliver a failing debate performance that unleashed panic among the Democratic Party, as some rushed to defend Biden, and others broke with the man who had served in public office for more than 50 years to demand fresh leadership at the 11th hour of the campaign cycle. 

‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don’t think he knows what he said either,’ Trump shot at Biden at one point during the debate.

The viral moment followed Biden attempting to tout Congress’ bipartisan border package that lawmakers had bucked earlier in 2023. 

Biden said, ‘We find ourselves in a situation where when he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers put them in cages, making sure that the families were separated.’

‘That’s not the right way to go. What I’ve done since I’ve changed the law, what’s happened? I’ve changed it in a way that now you’re in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally, that’s better than when he left office. And I’m going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers,’ Biden said, appearing to trail off. 

Overall, Biden’s 90-minute performance was riddled with him tripping over his words, speaking in a far more subdued tenor than during his vice presidency, having a raspy and unsure voice, and losing his train of thought at times. 

Biden and Trump also were both confronted over their ages during the debate, with the moderator saying Biden would be 86 by the end of a potential second term, and Trump 82. 

Biden defended his age, saying he ‘spent half my career being criticized about being the youngest person in politics. I was the second-youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I’m the oldest. This guy is three years younger and a lot less competent.’ 

Trump, meanwhile, said he had taken cognitive tests and ‘aced them.’ 

The debate unleashed panic among Democrat allies of the president and members of the media, as they remarked his performance was a failure that added fuel to the fire surrounding concerns over his mental acuity and age. 

‘My phone really never stopped buzzing throughout. And the universal reaction was somewhere approaching panic,’ then-MSNBC host Joy Reid, for example, said.

‘My job now is to be really honest,’ former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said during an appearance on MSNBC after the debate. ‘Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight.’ 

‘I think the emotions of the night were basically disappointment, anger, and then, by the end, it was panic,’ one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital following the debate.

Legacy media outlets such as the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune called on Biden to map out an exit plan – with the Times describing Biden as a ‘shadow of a great public servant’ – while Biden allies such as former President Barack Obama and first lady Jill Biden reiterated their support for the 46th president’s re-election. 

‘Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,’ Obama said the day after the debate. ‘But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight – and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit.’ 

Soon after the debate, however, reports spread that Obama was working behind the scenes to rally that Biden drop out of the race, so a new generation of Democrats could take the reins of the party. 

The White House, meanwhile, forcefully defended the president following the debate. 

‘Absolutely not,’ then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declared in a media briefing July 3, 2024, when asked if Biden had any plans to exit the 2024 race. 

Biden ultimately did drop out of the race on July 21, 2024, less than a month following the debate, as pressure from traditional allies grew. The president announced his departure in a Sunday afternoon message posted to his X account. 

The announcement was soon followed by him endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris to take up the mantle, leaving her with just more than 100 days to launch her own presidential campaign against Trump. 

A group of House Republicans is demanding to know how the U.S. is ready to protect its own domestic assets in the event of a potential attack on the homeland.

‘We write to inquire with the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) about the current state of drone attack countermeasures for our military installations, government buildings, embassies, and consulates, both domestic and abroad,’ the GOP lawmakers wrote in a letter.

‘The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have demonstrated that large-scale, highly coordinated mass-drone attacks can be highly effective if the defender lacks adequate counter-drone defenses.’

The letter was sent late Thursday, days after Israel and Iran declared a ceasefire following days of escalating attacks within one another’s borders.

Just before President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) warned the Middle East conflict was ‘causing a heightened threat environment in the United States.’

House lawmakers will be briefed behind closed doors on the situation with Iran at 9 a.m. Friday.

‘Since 9/11, our nation has not suffered a major coordinated attack on our own soil. While the government has done good work in preventing an attack like 9/11 from happening again, we want to ensure that we are preparing for a new paradigm in which relatively cheap drones can quickly and effectively wipe out core military and government infrastructure,’ the lawmakers wrote Thursday.

‘While American threat projection globally is strong among all the branches of the military, we need to be prepared for a new paradigm of covert, but potentially disastrous, threats to our core military interests, including our nuclear triad in the homeland.’

The letter is led by Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio.

The lawmakers are asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem if counter-drone technology is being factored into Trump’s plans for a Golden Dome defense system in the U.S.

They’ve also asked whether there is ‘a concern of any sort of weaponized drone buildup already happening in the United States from drones that may have been smuggled in due to the former administration’s open border policies.’

Noem and Hegseth were also questioned on whether they are ‘aware of or actively working to deter potential threats posed by foreign-owned land near critical military and infrastructure sites in the United States that could be a launching point for a mass drone attack like we saw in Russia by Ukrainian forces.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Pentagon and DHS for comment.

President Donald Trump recognized a third-generation autoworker from Michigan Thursday while speaking at the ‘big, beautiful event,’ noting he was a lifelong Democrat who now supports the president because of vehicle loan interest tax benefits.

The president spoke about the ‘big, beautiful bill’ from the East Room of the White House with a group of people standing behind him who represented various trades, including food delivery, farmers and automotive workers.

One of the workers standing behind Trump was James Benson, a third-generation autoworker from Belleville, Michigan, who has been with Ford Motor Company for 26 years.

Trump introduced Benson, noting that Ford has ‘a lot of plants’ in the U.S.

‘If you have plants in this country, you’re going to make a lot of money,’ the president said, adding that he loves autoworkers.

Trump also said Benson was a lifelong Democrat until 2017, when he saw the benefits of the tax laws.

Trump then spoke about his latest plan to benefit car owners by making interest on car payments fully tax-deductible.

But the deduction would only be for cars made in the U.S., Trump said, adding if it was made someplace else, ‘we don’t care.’

Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ would create a new deduction of up to $10,000 for qualified passenger vehicle loan interest in a given taxable year. The deduction would phase out when a taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income exceeds $100,000.

Applicable passenger vehicles include cars, trucks, vans, SUVs and motorcycles that have been manufactured for use on public streets, roads and freeways and for which the final assembly occurs in the U.S.

The bill defines the final assembly as the process by which the manufacturer produces a vehicle and delivers it to a dealer with all the parts necessary for operation.

As is the case with the overtime and tips deductions, the auto loan provision would be in effect for tax years 2025 through 2028.

Trump reiterated to those in attendance that the tax benefit is only for vehicles made in the U.S.

‘Remember that, James. We’re going to keep those Michigan auto factories roaring,’ the president said.

FOX Business’ Eric Revell contributed to this report.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi admitted in an interview on state TV that the U.S.’s strikes caused serious damage to Tehran’s nuclear facilities, despite Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s insistence that there was minimal impact.

Araghchi said in the interview that ‘the level of damage is high, and it’s serious damage,’ according to the Associated Press.

Post-strike assessments have shown that Iran’s nuclear sites suffered damage in both U.S. and Israeli attacks. All three countries — Iran, Israel and the U.S. — have reached similar conclusions about the extent of the damage, despite what a leaked intel report indicated.

The only leader who seemingly does not agree with the assessments is Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who said that ‘the Americans failed to achieve anything significant in their attack on nuclear facilities,’ according to reports. 

Khamenei appears to be more focused on projecting strength than reflecting reality. He described Iran’s attack on Al-Udeid, the American airbase in Qatar, as a ‘heavy slap to the U.S.’s face.’ While President Donald Trump dismissed it as a ‘very weak response’ and thanked Iran for giving the U.S. ‘early notice.’

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said in a statement on Tuesday that the agency had ‘seen extensive damage at several nuclear sites in Iran, including its uranium conversion and enrichment facilities.’

In addition to discussing the damage done to Iran’s nuclear sites, Araghchi also addressed the possibility of resuming talks with the U.S. He said that the American strikes ‘made it more complicated and more difficult’ for Iran to come to the table, but did not rule out the possibility that negotiations could resume.

Nuclear talks with the U.S. might not be entirely off the table for Iran after last week’s strikes—even if Tehran is not interested in reentering negotiations right away.

The possibility of negotiations was already in question prior to Operation Midnight Hammer, as Tehran viewed the U.S. as being ‘complicit’ in Israel’s Operation Rising Lion, according to Reuters, citing Iranian U.N. Ambassador Ali Bahreini.

Trump on Wednesday expressed optimism in the U.S.’s ability to resume nuclear talks with Iran.

‘We’re going to talk to them next week, with Iran. We may sign an agreement, I don’t know. To me, I don’t think it’s that necessary. I mean, they had a war. They fought. Now they’re going back to their world. I don’t care if I have an agreement or not. The only thing we would be asking for is what we’re asking for before about, we want no nuclear [program]. But we destroyed the nuclear,’ Trump said. 

Despite Trump’s statement, there is still no clear indication that the countries have plans to meet in the near future.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

President Trump exerted ‘maximum pressure’ on Israel and Iran in an effort to ‘deliver peace’ after his historic and decisive strikes decimated the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.

The president vowed throughout his 2024 campaign to reach ‘peace through strength,’ and he has taken steps in recent days to do just that, with an added pressure campaign on both Israel and Iran.

‘President Trump directing the perfect execution of the most secretive and successful military strikes in history – and then negotiating a ceasefire to the war within 48 hours – is the epitome of peace through strength,’ White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Fox News Digital. ‘Nobody knows how to exert maximum pressure to deliver peace better than Donald Trump.’

Trump, this week, participated in the NATO Summit in the Netherlands, where he was praised by allies for his decision to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised Trump as a ‘man of strength’ and a ‘man of peace.’

‘I just want to recognize your decisive action on Iran,’ Rutte said at the start of his joint remarks with the president. ‘You are a man of strength, but you are also a man of peace. And the fact that you are now also successful in getting this ceasefire done between Israel and Iran – I really want to commend you for that. I think this is important for the whole world.’

Rutte, on his social media, also congratulated the president for his ‘extraordinary’ action in Iran, saying it was ‘something no one else dared to do.’

‘It makes us all safer,’ Rutte said.

The president also brokered a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, announcing Monday that the ’12-Day War’ was coming to an end – just over a week after Israel launched a preemptive strike, citing fears that Tehran was dangerously close to obtaining a nuclear weapon.

The two countries subsequently traded rocket fire over the following days, and over the weekend, the U.S. launched its own airstrikes on three of Iran’s key nuclear facilities.

Iran responded by shooting rockets at a U.S. air base in Qatar on Monday, but not without giving advance notice to U.S. and Qatari officials. No injuries were reported in that attack.

The ceasefire had gotten off to an uncertain start, with the president unleashing frustration with both countries.

‘I’m not happy with Israel. You know, when I say, OK, now you have 12 hours, you don’t go out in the first hour and just drop everything you have on them. So I’m not happy with them. I’m not happy with Iran either, but I’m really unhappy if Israel is going out this morning,’ Trump said on Tuesday.

He continued, ‘We basically have two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f— they’re doing.’ 

‘I’m gonna see if I can stop it,’ he added.

‘ISRAEL. DO NOT DROP THOSE BOMBS. IF YOU DO IT IS A MAJOR VIOLATION. BRING YOUR PILOTS HOME, NOW!’ Trump wrote on Truth Social shortly after boarding Marine One.

Minutes later, he announced that Israel was canceling its plans for an attack on Tuesday morning.

‘ISRAEL is not going to attack Iran. All planes will turn around and head home, while doing a friendly ‘Plane Wave’ to Iran. Nobody will be hurt, the Ceasefire is in effect! Thank you for your attention to this matter!’ he wrote.

Israel did not attack.

From the NATO summit, the president warned that the U.S. will strike Iran again if it attempts to rebuild its nuclear program.

And Trump’s historic strikes in Iran have the Islamic Republic admitting that their nuclear facilities were decimated.

Assessments from the U.S., Israel and Iran agree the strikes were successful.

Former President Joe Biden’s disastrous presidential debate with now-President Donald Trump one year ago Friday changed the course of the 2024 election.

The octogenarian Delawarean appeared on-stage tired and with a raspy voice, while some of his responses were at times unintelligible, leading to Trump landing several wisecracks in response.

While giving a response about wealthy Americans paying sufficient taxes, Biden said there are at least 1,000 billionaires – first muttering ‘1,000 trillionaires’ – in the U.S. and that they purportedly pay only 8.2% in taxes.

‘If they just paid 24%; 25%, either one of those numbers, they’d raise $500 million – billion I should say in a 10-year period. We’d be able to wipe out the debt,’ and ‘all those things we need to do [with] child care, elder care.’

His response went on for several more seconds, transitioning into a sidewinder about making every person eligible for ‘what I’ve been able to do with COVID,’ before mumbling for several seconds and declaring, ‘We finally beat Medicare.’

When moderator Jake Tapper turned to Trump for a response, he said:

‘Well, he’s right, he did beat Medicare, he beat it to death.’

Biden also claimed to have reduced illegal immigration at the southern border by 40% over the course of his term.

‘It’s better than when [Trump] left office. And I’m going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers,’ Biden said.

‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either,’ Trump replied.

Trump also sharply criticized Biden for ‘destroy[ing] our country,’ and that he came out with a ‘nothing’ border plan to score a few political points.

The current president also labeled Biden ‘a Palestinian’ – a title he also bestowed on Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is Jewish – in relation to how they have responded to the Israel-Gaza conflict, after Biden accused him of disrespecting the military.

Biden said his late son, former Delaware Attorney General Joseph Beau Biden III, contracted glioblastoma from being stationed near burn pits in Iraq. He went on to accuse Trump of the widely-debunked ‘suckers and losers’ line about World War I casualties buried in a French cemetery.

‘My son was not a loser, he was not a sucker – you’re the sucker, you’re the loser,’ Biden fumed, speaking sternly through gritted teeth.

‘First of all, that was a made-up quote – suckers and losers – they made it up; it was in a third-rate magazine,’ Trump replied. 

The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg cited multiple anonymous sources in publishing the bombshell allegations in September 2020.

Fox News Digital’s Kiera McDonald, Emma Woodhead and Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.