Details have emerged of a scheme run by former President Barack Obama’s administration that funneled taxpayer money through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to fund civil unrest.
Former State Department official Mike Benz detailed the scheme in a recent appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
The covert operation by USAID during the Obama administration involved the creation of a secret social media platform designed to incite political unrest in Cuba.
Benz explains that American taxpayers were also funding “rent-a-riots” as part of the scheme.
“This was a scandal during Obama, the Obama USAID era,” Benz said.
“Now, we were running a number of rogue USAID operations in Cuba at the time.”
The operation, known as ZunZuneo, was modeled after X, known as Twitter at the time.
The platform launched between 2009 and 2014 to target Cuban citizens.
When it first launched, ZunZuneo was initially focused on non-political content like sports, music, and hurricane updates to draw in users.
According to Benz, the aim was to build a user base large enough to later introduce political messages designed to create civil unrest and ultimately spark a “Cuban Spring.”
“This was a Twitter knockoff,” Benz said.
“ZunZuneo, oh, is