Did Sen. Bernie Sanders get a $44 million USAID grant after he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race? No, that's not true: That story originated on a satirical Facebook page. The owner of the page is known for tricking conservatives into liking and sharing made-up content.
The claim appeared in an August 18, 2025 Facebook post (archived here) on the "America's Last Line of Defense" page under the title "Bernie Sanders is a wolf in wolf's clothing. He's exactly as evil as he looks." It opened:
Bernie Sanders is being dragged before the House Ethics Committee to explain why he was given a $44 million "grant" from USAID about 5 minutes after he dropped out in 2016. "Corruption is the only way to explain it."
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Tue Aug 19 16:29:54 2025 UTC)
The meme carries a clear "Satire" label:
The transparency tab of the Facebook page that published the meme says the page is run by "Busta Troll," which is the nickname of Christopher Blair.
Christopher Blair is a self-professed liberal from Maine who, for years, has run networks of websites set up to troll conservatives with made-up news items in order to get them to share his posts. A 2018 BBC profile called Blair "the Godfather of fake news," describing him as "one of the world's most prolific writers of disinformation."
Blair's stories have been widely copied by spammy, foreign website networks seeking to profit by spamming American conservatives with clickbait headlines.
Blair also republishes his work in other formats, as he did in this case. The same Sanders story appeared here and on his "Dunning-Kruger Times" fake news website.
Blair's network published similar satire stories about USAID grants to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Other fact checks
Here you can find some of the many, many stories from Blair's websites Lead Stories debunked over the years.
