Obama's "Rent-A-Riots"

Published: April 5, 2025

By: R. House

There have been allegations circulating, particularly in recent online discussions, that former President Barack Obama misused USAID funds by funneling them through Cayman Islands accounts to finance groups described as "Rent-a-Riots" for staging protests and destabilizing governments. These claims suggest that money intended as foreign aid was redirected offshore and used for covert political operations rather than humanitarian purposes.

The primary basis for these allegations appears to stem from a podcast interview on February 12, 2025, featuring Mike Benz, a former State Department official, on The Joe Rogan Experience. Benz discussed a scandal during the Obama administration involving USAID operations, notably in Cuba, where funds were allegedly used to support a Twitter-like platform called ZunZuneo. This platform, according to reports from the Associated Press in 2014, was intended to build a user base with neutral content before introducing political messaging to encourage dissent against the Cuban government. Benz claimed that USAID earmarked funds for Pakistani aid but redirected them through the Cayman Islands to finance such operations, including training groups for protests.

However, concrete evidence supporting the broader claim of widespread laundering to the Cayman Islands to finance rioters remains limited. The AP report confirmed that USAID concealed funding trails for ZunZuneo by routing money through a Cayman Islands entity to obscure its origins, but this was specific to the Cuba project and aimed at avoiding U.S. legal issues with Cuban payments, not necessarily funding "rioters." No official investigations or mainstream media reports have substantiated the larger narrative of Obama personally orchestrating a scheme to finance riots globally through USAID and the Cayman Islands. Critics, such as Tech ARP’s fact-check on March 24, 2025, argue that if such a significant scandal occurred, it would have triggered widespread coverage and legal action, which has not materialized.

The idea has gained traction on platforms like X and conservative outlets like The Gateway Pundit, which on March 23, 2025, amplified Benz’s claims, framing them as evidence of Obama laundering taxpayer dollars. Yet, without documented proof—like financial records, congressional findings, or whistleblower testimony beyond Benz’s assertions—these remain unverified allegations rather than established facts. USAID’s stated mission is to provide humanitarian aid and foster development, and while past operations like ZunZuneo show covert uses of funds, the leap to a systemic riot-financing scheme lacks corroboration in the available data as of today, March 24, 2025.