Newly Public IG Report Sheds Light on Biden Administration Arms Transfers to Israel
Yesterday, a group of former Biden administration officials issued a joint statement titled “Gaza Resignees” calling on 2028 presidential candidates “to commit to not hire any administration official directly responsible for enabling Israel’s military actions in Gaza.” The group alleges that Biden administration officials violated U.S. and international law as they continued to enable Israel’s actions in Gaza “despite ample evidence and thorough internal warnings of the consequences of their decisions.”
A newly public report obtained by Lawfare through a Freedom of Information Act request sheds new light on these allegations and other recent calls for scrutiny into Biden administration decisions to send military assistance to Israel. In September 2025, the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General determined that it would take the government 12 and a half years to review allegations of gross violations of human rights committed by Israel Defense Forces units receiving U.S. military and security assistance. This is according to the partially redacted copy of the State Department inspector general’s report “Review of the Department of State's Implementation of Leahy Non-Traceable Assistance Requirements.”
The limited capacity to review this backlog “following the conflict between Israel and Hamas in October 2023 increased the risk that security assistance could be furnished to units of Israel's security forces that may have committed [gross violations of human rights (GVHRs)],” the report concluded.
The inspector general found that the State Department lacked a system or process to verify that ineligible units are not receiving U.S. assistance. It also found that the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum (ILVF), a specialized internal State Department group charged with reviewing allegations of human rights violations committed by Israeli military and police units, was operating without final rules that would guide that process.
The Washington Post’s John Hudson previously reported in September 2024 that State Department and Pentagon watchdogs were “preparing to publish the results of multiple investigations scrutinizing the Biden administration’s provision of U.S. weapons to Israel for its military campaign in Gaza,” amid reports that the Biden administration failed to follow vetting procedures and conduct proper oversight of its continued arms transfers to Israel, despite acknowledging the likelihood that many of the units receiving these weapons had violated international law in Gaza. The State Department report was not made public until now. It adds more detailed context to the Post’s earlier reporting.
The vetting procedures at issue arise from the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, also known as the “Leahy Law,” which prohibits U.S. assistance to any foreign security forces unit if the secretary of state has credible information the unit committed a “gross violation of human rights.” Implementation of the law, however, is complicated by the fact that the U.S. may not know in advance of the transfer exactly which unit will receive the security assistance. In these cases of “non-traceable assistance” (NTA) the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs Appropriations Act of 2021 requires the secretary of state to regularly provide Congress with a list of units prohibited from receiving assistance. The State Department listed Egypt, Israel, Jordan, and Ukraine as NTA recipients as of March 2025.
In its September 2025 report, the inspector general found that the State Department had only complied “with some guidance regarding the Leahy requirements involving NTA recipients” and “had not developed or distributed comprehensive guidance and training to help staff implement NTA vetting requirements.” Sub-departments overseeing arms transfers to Israel had not updated vetting guidance for years, even after Congress passed these new NTA-specific vetting requirements. “Instead of comprehensive guidance,” the report found, “the Department dispersed information regarding NTA identification and vetting requirements among multiple cables and other documents spread over several years.” The government watchdog further reported that “an average of 48 percent of all missions overseas did not respond to annual requirements to certify if a country was receiving NTA.”
At the time of the report’s publication, the inspector general found that the ILVF, the specialized internal State Department group charged with reviewing allegations of human rights violations committed by Israeli military and police units, “operated without finalized standard operating procedures.” The draft version of standard operating procedures “did not contain guidance on issues such as the timeframe for the [government of Israel] to respond to [requests for information] and how soon the ILVF should forward a decision memorandum to the Secretary after the ILVF concluded that a GVHR had likely been committed.” Though specific details are redacted, the report acknowledged this and other “key differences between the typical NTA process and the Israel-specific Leahy vetting processes for NTA,” and concluded that the “Department's additional procedures for Israel resulted in lengthy adjudication delays.”
The Leahy Law provides an exception to the prohibition on military assistance if the secretary of state finds that a foreign government is taking effective steps to hold a unit accountable for gross violations of human rights through a process known as remediation. However, the inspector general report found that the State Department lacked clear requirements on “how to handle GVHR determinations when remediation efforts are pending,” causing further delays. “These delays raised the risk that un-remediated ineligible units continued to receive U.S. security assistance,” the report concluded, also noting that remediation is not required under the Leahy Law.
Read the State Department’s Office of the Inspector General report here or below:
