Tech billionaire Peter Thiel revealed the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has found some left-wing NGOs that are simply fronts disguising “borderline criminal activity.”
The entrepreneur made the allegation in an interview on Joe Lonsdale’s podcast.
He added some of the smug, satisfied NGO bureaucrats responsible could face possible criminal prosecution for defrauding the government and misusing taxpayer dollars for vanity projects rather than serving the wider good.
Their discussion touched on the cause and effect of the bureaucratic fraud:
LONSDALE: […] entitlements have lots of fraud too, probably. But I’ve been a little bit shocked.
I knew there was waste, but there seems like a lot of scams they’re finding. It’s like a lot more scams, I guess, than I even knew.
THIEL: I think there were scams. I think the nonprofit stuff is…
LONSDALE: The NGO stuff is out of control.
THIEL: Is really out of control. It’s sort of like… I don’t know.
It’s sort of like virtue signaling is a sign that you’re doing something evil. And so much of this left-wing philanthropy nonprofit world, I think it was just a cover for borderline criminal activity.
Thiel went on to say actions have consequences, “And one of the people who looked at this a lot thinks you could just prosecute these people for fraud. Something like this is what Oliver North was prosecuted for in the Iran-Contra scandal in the 80s, was he mischaracterized the money and he mislabeled it. And it was accused of defrauding the government.
“And I think you could prosecute thousands of these people criminally for the thing that they wanted to prosecute Oliver North for in the 80s.”
DOGE began work on January 20, 2025, when it was established by an executive order from U.S. President Donald Trump.
The order reorganized the United States Digital Service and renamed it the United States DOGE Service.
One of its first major successes was discovering some $1.9 billion was “misplaced” by the previous Biden administration, as Breitbart News reported.
The announcement came on the heels of confirmation a DOGE task force was to be set up at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
