The deputy inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Adam Kaplan, said on Tuesday that his office will investigate U.N. staff for ties to Hamas, noting that previous vetting requirements by the aid agency exempted employees of the international body. 

Following the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attacks in Israel, USAID’s Office of Inspector General (USAID OIG) — responsible for conducting independent auditing and investigation of USAID and other foreign assistance programs — identified Gaza as a “high-risk for potential diversion and misuse of U.S.-funded assistance,” and has initiated investigations into several partners over connections to terrorism and fraud “to ensure humanitarian assistance in Gaza does not fall into the hands of Hamas and other foreign terrorist organizations.” 

Previously, the agency has looked into the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides services to Palestinians, uncovering evidence in 2025 connecting three “current or former” UNRWA employees to the Oct. 7 attacks and affiliating 14 other “current or former” UNRWA employees with Hamas. UNRWA also itself dismissed nine of its employees for their potential participation in the attacks.

During a House Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee hearing on Tuesday discussing wasteful foreign assistance spending, Kaplan noted that USAID “required partner vetting of organization staff” to ensure that “terrorists don’t get our money,” however, that action “exempted U.N. staff.” 

“To address this gap, USAID IG is investigating U.N. staff for ties to Hamas to ensure U.S. taxpayers do not pay their salaries,” Kaplan said. 

He also noted a lack of transparent access to information. Describing ongoing investigations, Kaplan said his department has sought information from “five different U.N. agencies on 10 investigations,” but that response times spanned six months to two years, something he called “unacceptable.”

“We encounter nonstop obstruction by the U.N. to share information about potential misuse of U.S. funds,” Kaplan said. “USAID heavily relied on award recipients operating in remote locations to self-disclose fraud allegations of all award recipients. The least transparent is the United Nations.”

“We urge the State Department to implement a clause mandating that awards to the U.N. provide us with access to information,” he added. 

Kaplan also said a major issue was that U.S. Anti-Terrorism Certifications (ATC), a legal promise required from organizations receiving U.S. foreign aid that they are not connected to terrorism and will not use U.S. funds to support terrorist groups, “applied only to grants, not contracts,” something that shielded contractors from being investigated over terrorist links. 

“This certification allowed the Department of Justice and Office of the Inspector General to bring cases against grantees for concealing past support to Iran and Hezbollah,” Kaplan said. “Inexplicably, however, contractors were not required to make the same representation.” 

Kaplan said that bad actors have “tried to exploit gaps” in the past, referencing a case in the Southern District of New York where a “British NGO [that] had falsified its past support provided to Hezbollah and Iranian affiliates” was dismissed because the office was not in the U.S.

“We brought the case, the judge in New York said, ‘Well, there’s really no ties. It’s a British firm, and other than the actual contract grant, there’s no ties to the United States. They don’t have an office in the U.S.,’” Kaplan said. “The case was dismissed. You have no idea how much that frustrated us, because it was a great case, and this contractor lied about his past affiliation with terrorist actors.”