Biden administration spent taxpayer money to upgrade embassy pools in war-torn countries

A report from Senator Joni Ernst's office showed that the Biden administration's State Department authorized more than $1 million in taxpayer funds to renovate swimming pools at U.S. embassies and mission residences in war-torn countries like Haiti, Sudan and Iraq.

"The Biden State Department threw a blowout summer pool party around the world on your dime," Sen. Ernst (R-Iowa) said in a statement posted on X.

"Bureaucrats might think wasting millions is a drop in the bucket, but I am sick and tired of taxpayers getting tossed in the deep end by Washington," Ernst added.

Similarly, the lawmaker stressed that she will continue to work with the Trump administration to put an end to this Biden-era spending.

The New York Post, which first released the report, explained that most of the spending appears to be on renovations to existing pools, rather than the construction of new ones, although some amounts exceed six figures.

For example, in Zimbabwe, the State Department authorized a renovation at U.S. diplomatic residences in Harare to add pool covers, costing more than $130,000, according to USASpending.gov, the source Ernst's team used to gather the information.

In addition, it was learned that in 2022, the Biden administration allocated about $40,000 for the replacement of a sewer pump for the swimming pool at its embassy in Moscow, according to records, which note that the contract was issued nearly three months after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February of that year.

In that regard, The New York Post noted that in Baghdad, Iraq, approximately $444,000 in taxpayer money was spent to upgrade the embassy's interior dehumidification system, a luxury structure that originally cost more than $750 million.

The analysis identified a total of pool upgrades distributed as follows: two in Haiti, one in Russia, five in Iraq, three in Sudan, one in Zimbabwe, one in Ghana and one in Indonesia.

Meanwhile, according to the information, some of the contracts have not yet been fully paid. According to data from USASpending.gov, a contract for $173,000 allocated for a "Prapatan swimming pool project" remains unpaid.