A new report has found that the State Department under the Biden administration wasted taxpayer dollars on renovating swimming pools at embassies in other countries.
Sen. Joni Ernst blasted the Biden State Department for the “blowout summer pool party” expenses that drained more than $1 million in taxpayer funds to upgrade the pools in war-torn countries, including Haiti, Sudan, and Iraq.
The Biden State Department threw a blowout summer pool party around the world on your dime.
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.
The splashy spending must stop! https://t.co/LYMGW3sLys
— Joni Ernst (@SenJoniErnst) July 18, 2025
“The Biden State Department threw a blowout summer pool party on your dime,” the Iowa Republican, who leads the Senate DOGE Caucus, told Fox News Digital 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,” Ernst said. “I will continue working with the Trump administration to put a stop to the splashy spending of the Biden years.”
According to the New York Post, more than $1.2 million was spent by the Biden State Department to renovate two pools in Haiti, five in Iraq, three in Sudan, as well as one in Russia, another in Zimbabwe, and even one in Ghana. Ernst’s team reportedly used USASpending.gov to compile the shocking data.
“Taxpayers spent $41,259 to rehabilitate the pool at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in a contract inked three months after Russia invaded Ukraine in a war that has continued raging. The purchase order was dated June 3, 2022, through Aug. 15, 2022, after the war began in February that same year,” Fox News reported.
“The U.S. embassy in Baghdad was awarded a whopping $444,000 to replace its indoor dehumidification system for its pool in a contract that began on Sept. 27, 2024. While the U.S. Consulate in Erbil, Iraq, received over $10,000 to conduct mechanical repairs to its pool,” the outlet added after reviewing the senator’s report.
While the State Department has issued a do-not-travel advisory to Sudan, the administration still blew $24,000 in taxpayer dollars to install a pool deck in 2021.
Social media users on X were just as appalled by the seeming waste of funds.
We’ve got some really irresponsible people in the Stare Department! This is unbelievable and unacceptable!
— Susy Nolan Breen (new account) (@SusyBreen) July 17, 2025
What a waste…
— Rick Delzer (@RickD_GK) July 17, 2025
$1.2M for embassy pools? That’s one expensive way to make a splash in foreign policy—while taxpayers are left high and dry.
— Levi (@LeviCommonSense) July 20, 2025
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Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.
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