Leahy Lambastes USAID Over 'Cuban Twitter'
Source: Associated Press
Tuesday, April 8, 2014 at 2:00 pm
WASHINGTON (AP) — A Twitter-like Cuban social media network that the U.S. government built to stir unrest was a "cockamamie" idea doomed to discovery and failure, the chairman of a Senate panel that oversees the U.S. Agency for International Development declared today. He said the agency didn't adequately describe to Congress the program it was secretly operating.
His voice rising in anger at moments, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said, "This one from the get-go had no possibility of working."
Rajiv Shah, USAID's top official, said the program, disclosed last week by The Associated Press, was part of the administration's efforts to provide new digital methods to increase the flow of information in and out of Cuba. Shah said the effort operated "discreetly" and was described in congressional budget justifications. But Leahy interrupted Shah to say he had read those budget documents.
"If you could figure out it meant this, you're doing a lot better job than most of us," Leahy said.
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