While American families struggled with inflation and rising costs at home under the Biden administration, the administration quietly poured millions of taxpayer dollars into upgrading luxury amenities, such as embassy swimming pools, in places like Iraq and Russia.
A report led by Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) revealed that the Biden administration’s State Department authorized over $1.2 million for swimming pool upgrades at U.S. embassies and diplomatic residences—many of them located in countries facing war or extreme poverty. The investigation uncovered at least 14 separate orders tied to pool renovations across seven nations, including Russia, even after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
"The Biden State Department threw a blowout summer pool party on your dime," Ernst said in a statement. "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. I will continue working with the Trump administration to put a stop to the splashy spending of the Biden years."
Senator Ernst noted that most of the spending wasn’t for building new pools, but for upgrading existing ones—despite many of the projects costing tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Biden administration’s State Department approved renovations for two pools in Haiti, five in Iraq, three in Sudan, and one each in Russia, Zimbabwe, and Ghana, totaling over $1.2 million. At the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, the government spent at least $41,259 in 2022 to replace a swimming pool sewer pump—an expense that came months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February of that year.
While Americans face economic pressure at home, the Biden administration has directed hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars toward overseas facility upgrades. In Baghdad, $444,000 was spent to improve the indoor dehumidification system at the extravagant U.S. Embassy, which already cost more than $750 million to build. Meanwhile, the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Iraq, spent over $10,000 on mechanical repairs for its swimming pool. Back in 2021, $24,000 was spent on installing a pool deck at the embassy in Sudan—despite the country being under a “do not travel” advisory due to violence, and with embassy operations in Khartoum suspended since 2023.
