House Foreign Affairs Committee chairman Mike McCaul is reviving a GOP investigation into a 2021 State Department grant to atheist and humanist groups in the Middle East and North Africa, after Foggy Bottom stonewalled existing probes into the matter.
In a February 1 letter to the State Department, obtained exclusively by National Review, McCaul wrote, “I do not take lightly the plight that some non-believers face in coercive environments.” He added, “Still, the Department’s approach to this [grant] breaks new ground and signals to the world that the U.S. government seeks to ‘modernize’ other societies by promoting a specific secular agenda.”
Starting in April 2021, the State Department bureau of democracy, human rights, and labor began soliciting bids for a $500,000 grant titled “Promoting and Defending Religious Freedom Inclusive of Atheist, Humanist, Non-Practicing and Non-Affiliated Individuals.” The funding notification specifies that recipients’ activities should fall within two to three countries across South and Central Asia or the Middle East and North Africa.
“By not adhering to a predominant religious tradition, many individuals face discrimination in employment, housing, in civil and criminal proceedings, and other areas especially in the context of intersectional identities,” the text of the funding opportunity states. The State Department’s “objective is to combat discrimination, harassment and abuses against atheist, humanist, non-practicing and non-affiliated individuals of all religious communities by strengthening networks among these communities and providing organizational training and resources.”
While the objective of the grant is to assist persecuted religious minorities, McCaul expressed concern in the letter that the program unconstitutionally promotes the interests of one specific religious group as opposed to those of all religious minorities.
“I therefore have significant concern that the recipients of this funding opportunity are using U.S. taxpayer dollars to unlawfully promote certain belief systems over others, thus violating the Establishment Clause,” he wrote.
State Department officials told Republican lawmakers and staff last year that the department’s lawyers have never completed a constitutional review of the program.
Representative Jim Banks had previously sent two letters to the State Department requesting further information about the program, though State has yet to specify the countries in which the program, announced in April 2021, is being conducted.
In a statement to National Review, Banks thanked McCaul for taking up the investigation “after months of stonewalling from the Biden administration.”
“The House Republican majority will not tolerate the unconstitutional and harmful funding of atheism abroad,” he continued. “Americans believe in free exercise of religion, not state-supported atheism, and taxpayers shouldn’t be on the hook for this anti-American program.”
The McCaul letter includes a series of questions about the projects funded under the grant and about State’s internal conversations about its constitutionality and implementation. It also requests the relevant contracts, setting February 10 as the response deadline. A source close to the committee said that McCaul is ultimately willing to use the subpoena power to obtain the documents if State doesn’t comply.
A State Department spokesperson told National Review, “We have received the letter and will respond accordingly.”