House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul, R-Texas, issued a subpoena against Humanists International, an organization that promoted atheism in Nepal.
The organization took $500,000 in grant money from the Biden administration that was earmarked to promote religious freedoms and instead used it to advocate for humanism; a worldview that holds no belief in God.
The subpoena, announced by McCaul on Thursday, targets the organization over its refusal to hand over records to Congress related to the money it received from the State Department.
"For too long, organizations with extreme, ideological agendas — like Humanists International — have been allowed to implement publicly funded programs far from the public eye and with minimal congressional oversight," McCaul said in a statement.
"I was forced to subpoena HI because it has refused to provide transparency to Congress and the American people despite receiving hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars. It has been a complicit partner to the State Department, which I am also prepared to subpoena in the coming days for repeatedly resisting production of documents and obfuscating its role in intentionally exporting atheism abroad and distorting religious freedom in a partisan manner," he concluded.
McCaul sent a letter of reprimand on July 29 to Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Richard Verma over the department’s "lack of candor" with the House committee’s investigation and refusal to turn over correspondence with the organization that dates back a year ago.
"The Department’s continued non-production of the requested correspondence – including emails and text messages which are known to exist – is an unacceptable continuation of this pattern," McCaul wrote, giving Verma a deadline of Aug. 6 to turn over those communications.
It’s unclear if the State Department complied in time.
The State Department’s Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor solicited applications for the grant in April 2021, later becoming a multiyear probe led by House Republicans, the New York Post reported.