Dem in House Oversight hearing refers to El Paso massacre and warns 'what goes around comes around'

Republicans at a House Oversight subcommittee hearing Wednesday scrutinized how federally funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) advance progressive programs and sometimes employ people who have worked in the same federal agencies that oversee the grant money distributed to those NGOs. Many of these individuals in key positions at these NGOs, witnesses at the hearing testified, donate to Democratic candidates. 

Democrats in the hearing blasted Republicans for wanting to cut the funding of nonprofits providing charitable services, and one witness took remarks from Rep. Greg Casar to be a threat of violence. A spokesperson for Casar's office said the comment was misunderstood.

The Democrats also criticized Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), but at the same time held up his posts on X critical of Republicans for not following through with DOGE’s proposed cuts as support for their opposition to Republicans. It wasn’t clear how Musk’s dispute with Republicans over the spending bill supported their criticisms of funding cuts to nonprofits. 

“I guess that makes sense, because no Democrat could defend the tens of billions of dollars that are unaccounted for or doled out arbitrarily by progressives in the Biden administration to their political allies,” Daniel Turner, executive director of Power the Future and one of the witnesses in the hearing, told Just the News. 

Questions about dubious associations

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, questioned one of the panelists, Mark Krikorian, who is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, about articles the group had shared from Kevin MacDonald, a retired psychology professor who has been accused by some academics of promoting anti-Semitism. Casar also asked about the group sharing articles from John Friend, who has been accused of Holocaust denial. 

Krikorian stated that the group had never distributed any material that could be considered anti-Semitic or denying the Holocaust, but he said they shared articles on immigration by those authors, as they have shared work by those who promote open borders.  

“We have distributed work all across the spectrum, right from The New York Times to anyone else,” Krikorian said. 

Based on that answer, Casar accused the Center for Immigration Studies of promoting Holocaust denial and asked Krikorian if the group had had any funding cut by DOGE, arguing that the concerns over funding to NGOs raised at the hearing were only targeting the progressive nonprofits. 

Seeking clarification on 'What goes around comes around’

Casar then talked about the 2019 shooting at a Walmart in El Paso that killed 23 people. The shooter, Patrick Crusius, had stated in a manifesto that he’d committed the murders as a result of a Hispanic invasion of Texas. Casar asked Krikorian why he referred to the manifesto as remarkably well written.

“What I meant by that was it seemed improbable for a nut case like that to have written something that was relatively, at least grammatically correct. That was my point,” Krikorian replied. 

“What goes around comes around. I just want to make clear what goes around comes around,” Casar said. 

Later in the hearing, Turner said that he had wanted to ask Casar for some clarification as to what he meant by the remark, but Casar had already left. 

“He was looking at the witnesses talking about a murderer, and said, ‘What goes around, comes around.’ And I don't know what that comment meant. I don't have the luxury of Capitol Hill police to protect me. And in the climate space, we get a lot of death threats. We got a lot of hate from climate environmental groups,” Turner said. 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., chair of the Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee, said they would address the matter after the hearing. 

In an interview, Turner said the comment was particularly concerning in light of much violence from the left in the past few months, including vandalism to Tesla cars and dealerships, the murder of two Jewish people outside a Jewish museum in Washington, D.C., and the Colorado firebombing of people holding a vigil honoring Israeli hostages in Gaza. 

“I guess it's not surprising that he invokes the language of violence, because it's really part and parcel of how the progressives in America do politics,” Turner said. 

A spokesperson for Casar told Just the News that the comment was not making any threat, but was referring to the Republicans' oversight of progressive nonprofits, saying it could go both ways. 

“Congressman Casar abhors violence of all forms, including all political violence. As is clear from the full context of his remarks, he is saying that scrutiny and oversight can ‘come around,'" the spokesperson said.

Intricate web creates a $2 billion payoff

Republicans also raised issues with what was described more than once as an “incestuous” relationship between Democratic allies, NGO employees and federal workers. 

“This intricate web of connections is how elected and appointed Democrat officials and allied NGOs work together. Federal agencies fund the NGOs, and the NGOs shape the agency's behavior. It can be hard to tell where the government ends and the NGO begins. The nonprofits essentially serve as an arm of the government,” Greene said. 

Greene said the green energy NGOs were among the worst offenders in this circle. The Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund (GGRF), Green said, provided $27 billion to nonprofits that advanced the Biden administration’s “Green New Deal scam.” The awardees, according to Greene, were connected to the Biden administration and the democratic donors, and they sit on each other’s boards. 

“While we are grateful to the Trump administration and EPA Administrator, Administrator Lee Zeldin for shutting it down and quickly terminating these grants, further accountability is necessary,” Greene said. 

The most cited example of the relationship between NGOs and the Biden administration that was raised at the hearing was the $2 billion in funding that went to Washington, D.C.-based coalition, Power Forward Communities. The group formed in 2023, and according to tax documents, it had $100 in revenues. The Biden administration in 2024 awarded the group $2 billion. 

Among the coalition’s members is Rewiring America, which hired two-time Democratic Georgia governor candidate Stacey Abrams as senior counsel. Abrams was "pivotal," the The Washington Beacon reported, in securing the $2 billion in funding. 

“There is no private entity that would give an organization 20 million times revenue after a few months of creation. Only government is stupid enough to do that,” Turner testified. 

Private donations versus tax dollars

Democrats in the hearing also called the Republicans immoral for looking to cut funding for what they described as charitable organizations that were providing valuable services to the needy. 

“They are withholding a half trillion dollars illegally from nonprofit organizations that provide services for our communities, public safety, health services, housing, the Big Brothers and Big Sisters of America, Boys and Girls Club and Habitat for Humanity. Is this the dark money scare that we're hearing across the aisle?” Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., ranking member of the subcommittee, said. 

Stansbury also raised issues with the private funding given to organizations the panel’s witnesses represented, such as funding from the Koch Foundation. 

Rep. Micheal Cloud, R-Texas, called the arguments a “smokescreen” that was meant to confuse what the hearing was actually about. 

“The ranking member tried to equate private donations going to conservative organizations with taxpayer dollars going to leftist organizations, as if that was the same thing,” Cloud said. 

Cloud said that no one was against charitable NGOs, and he pointed out that charitable giving by Republicans eclipses that from Democrats. 

“As a matter of fact, Scripture gives a definition of what charity is. Each of you should give exactly what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion. God loves a cheerful giver. We're all about charity, but charity isn't given at the strong arm mandate of the federal government, requiring taxpayers. That's not charity. That is taxes,” Cloud said. 

Democrats backing away from talk of climate crisis

While Democrats defended nonprofits’ federal funding, they didn’t defend the climate programs some of those NGOs carried out. In many past hearings, Democrats often defended climate policies, especially those supporting the buildout of wind and solar power, by claiming they were necessary to stop what they call a “climate crisis.” 

In an interview, Turner said that the lack of alarm about climate change might mean that Democrats are coming to terms with the fact that the issue doesn’t rate high with voters. 

“The climate crisis seems to be gone. Heck, even one of the veterans of the climate movement, little Greta [Thunberg], is now more interested in hating the Jews than climate change. So, they're losing their funding, and now they're losing their top surrogates,” Turner said, referring to the Swedish activists’ claims that Israel commits "war crimes."