Activists for the HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations Health GAP and Housing Works faced arrest Monday after storming McCarthy's office on Capitol Hill and pressing Congress to carve out a five-year extension to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a program that allocates federal funds for research, prevention, and treatment to fight the disease.
Housing Works declined to further comment on the incident, pointing the Washington Examiner to its joint press release Monday with Health GAP, in which Housing Works CEO Charles King, who was arrested, dubbed it"criminal" that some Republicans oppose PEPFAR — which was last approved in 2019. Conservative groups and GOP members have argued that PEPFAR, which was enacted under Republican President George W. Bush, is a Democratic-run program that has bankrolled abortions overseas.
In fiscal 2022, the charity received $11 million from the Department of Health and Human Services, $605,000 from the Department of Homeland Security, and $7.3 million from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, statements show. Housing Works, which has protested repeatedly in recent years in favor of abortion access and demanded healthcare for illegal immigrants, shouldn't be engaged in radical advocacy leading to congressional arrests given it is so heavily affiliated with the U.S. government, according to Adam Andrzejewski, CEO of the federal spending watchdog Open the Books.