The Last Two Decades Should Stop every American Cold
Part 2 of the Thomas Jefferson Series: The Warning was ignored
Thomas Jefferson wrote a paragraph in the original Declaration of Independence blaming King George for forcing the slave trade onto the colonies — and it was removed before Americans ever read it. Then we traced Jefferson and Washington’s documented warnings: foreign influence, in whatever form it may be attempted — political, commercial, organizational — is one of the most dangerous threats a free republic faces.
That was 1776 to 1796.
This is now.
And what the sourced record shows about the last two decades should stop every American cold — not because it’s a theory, but because it isn’t.
Thread One: A Vice President. A Foreign Company. A Fired Prosecutor.
Let’s establish what is actually documented — from the House Oversight Committee’s own published timeline, court records, and congressional testimony.
In April 2014, Vice President Joe Biden visited Ukraine and was soon described as the administration’s public face on Ukraine policy. The day after his visit, Devon Archer — a Biden business associate — joined the board of Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian energy company owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky.
Fourteen days later, Hunter Biden joined Burisma’s board.
Over the following years, Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were paid millions of dollars by Zlochevsky for their participation on that board.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian Prosecutor General, Viktor Shokin, was actively investigating Burisma and its owner. Vice President Biden demanded Ukraine fire Shokin — and tied $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees to that demand. Poroshenko committed to the firing. Shokin was removed.
Biden said publicly his demand was about fighting corruption. His critics said it was about protecting his son’s employer.
Here is what the sourced record does not resolve: whether Biden’s motive was corrupt or legitimate. Reasonable people can read that timeline differently.
Here is what the sourced record does establish: a sitting Vice President, assigned by the Obama administration to oversee Ukraine policy, had family members receiving millions of dollars from a Ukrainian oligarch whose company was under active investigation in that same country. And that prosecutor was fired at Biden’s documented insistence.
Jefferson had a word for the structural problem that creates — even when no crime can be proven. He called it a foreign entanglement. He called it dangerous by design.
Thread Two: $550 Million. A Decade. Taxpayer Money.
On June 12, 2025, the Department of Justice announced that a USAID contracting officer and three corporate executives had pleaded guilty in a bribery scheme that ran for over a decade.
These are not allegations. These are guilty pleas, sourced directly from the DOJ press release and the USAID Office of Inspector General.
The contracting officer was Roderick Watson. Beginning in 2013, Watson used his position to steer contracts to two companies — Apprio and Vistant — in exchange for cash, luxury event tickets, down payments on two residential mortgages, electronics, and a country club wedding for a family member. The bribes were often funneled through a subcontractor to hide the payments.
The result: at least 14 prime contracts worth more than $550 million in U.S. taxpayer dollars, manipulated through a non-competitive process over nine years.
Watson was debarred for 10 years. The executives received six-year debarments. The two companies entered deferred prosecution agreements.
One of the contracts awarded inside this scheme — in November 2023 — was worth up to $800 million and focused on addressing root causes of irregular migration from Central America. It was initially canceled after USAID flagged Vistant for lacking business integrity. Vistant sued. And was re-awarded the contract.
The USAID Inspector General confirmed its own investigation into this scheme is active and ongoing.
Now apply Jefferson’s framework.
The money was American. The contracts were supposed to serve American foreign policy interests. The people entrusted to award those contracts were selling that authority — for nearly a decade — to the highest private bidder.
That’s not foreign influence from outside the gates. That’s the internal rot Washington warned made a republic vulnerable to foreign influence. When the people responsible for managing American interests abroad are compromised, what exactly is being protected?
Thread Three: The Law That Doesn’t Require You to Know
Here is a documented fact that surprises most Americans when they first encounter it.
There is currently no federal law requiring members of Congress to disclose if they hold citizenship in a foreign country.
That’s not a theory. That’s the law as written.
The Dual Citizenship Disclosure Act was introduced in the 118th Congress. It would have required Members of Congress who are foreign nationals to file a statement with the appropriate ethics committee. Maximum fine for non-compliance: $2,500. It did not pass.
In 2025, Representative Thomas Massie introduced separate legislation requiring federal candidates to disclose both their dual citizenship and the specific foreign nation. As of this writing, it has not been enacted.
The legal analysis is clear: the Constitution sets minimum age, residency, and citizenship-duration requirements for federal office — but expressly prohibits nothing about holding a second citizenship simultaneously. Elected officials are not required to tell the voters who sent them to Washington that they may also hold legal allegiance to another country.
One published legal analysis framed the problem plainly: dual citizenship creates potential conflicts of interest through divided loyalties when legislators or senior officials make or speak on policies that relate to their second country — and undisclosed dual citizenship erodes trust while allowing apparent conflicts to continue undetected.
CmonSense is not claiming that any specific official holds foreign citizenship. (but we all know they do). Without documented confirmation per individual, that claim cannot be made.
What CmonSense is saying is documented fact: the law does not require them to tell you. Two disclosure bills have been introduced. Neither passed.
Jefferson said foreign influence operates in whatever form it may be attempted. The form this takes isn’t always a foreign army or a wire transfer. Sometimes the form is a law that simply doesn’t exist.
The Pattern the Founders Already Identified
Put all three threads together — the way Jefferson himself thought. Not one piece at a time. The whole picture.
A Vice President with documented family financial ties to a foreign oligarch was the point person for U.S. policy in that oligarch’s country. The prosecutor investigating that oligarch was fired at the Vice President’s documented insistence. And the Vice President later issued a sweeping preemptive pardon to his son covering any offenses dating back to January 2014 — the same month the Burisma board arrangements began.
A federal agency responsible for distributing billions in American taxpayer dollars abroad operated for at least nine years with a contracting officer who was selling contract access to private bidders. Over $550 million in contracts. Guilty pleas from the DOJ’s own press release. The scheme ran through four presidential budget cycles.
And the law as written does not require a single member of Congress to disclose whether they hold citizenship — and legal allegiance — to a foreign nation.
Washington called it clearly in 1796. Foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government, and the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake.
The question isn’t whether the Founders were right.
The real question is much alarming than that.
They warned us. They put it in letters, speeches, and governing documents that are archived, digitized, and publicly available to every American.
So why does the system they warned against look exactly like the one we built?
What You Should Be Asking
The documented record earns these questions — not as partisan attacks, but as the questions a self-governing people is required to ask:
If a Vice President’s family was financially entangled with a foreign oligarch in a country that VP oversaw — and the prosecutor investigating that oligarch was fired at that VP’s insistence — why was the question of structural conflict of interest never investigated by a neutral, independent body with subpoena power?
If a federal agency distributed over $550 million through a compromised contracting process for nearly a decade — with guilty pleas now on record — what other contracts during that same period went through similar processes that haven’t been examined yet?
If the Founders explicitly warned that foreign influence operates in whatever form it may be attempted — why has Congress twice failed to pass a law simply requiring its own members to disclose whether they hold citizenship in a foreign nation?
Those aren’t conspiracy questions. They’re the questions a free people is constitutionally obligated to ask.
Jefferson wrote the warning. Congress edited it out. And somewhere between 1776 and today, we stopped asking why.
Facts. Logic. Common Sense.
— CmonSense
Sources: House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, “The Bidens’ Influence Peddling Timeline,” oversight.house.gov; U.S. Department of Justice Press Release, “USAID Official and Three Corporate Executives Plead Guilty to Decade-Long Bribery Scheme,” June 12, 2025, justice.gov; USAID Office of Inspector General Investigative Summary, oig.usaid.gov; H.R.7484, Dual Citizenship Disclosure Act, 118th Congress, congress.gov; Rep. Thomas Massie, legislation requiring dual citizenship disclosure, March 2025, massie.house.gov; George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796; Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1797.
