Rajiv Shah, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, denied Tuesday knowing who at the relief agency concocted a failed Twitter-like program intended to stir dissent in Cuba.

But Shah, responding to Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., said similar work is being conducted by USAID around the world.

“We support and implement the FY 2014 appropriations language that directs us to improve access to information and Internet freedom in many parts of the world,” Shah said during a hearing before a subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee on the agency’s fiscal year 2015 budget.

“What are some other countries where you do it openly?” Leahy asked.

“Literally around the world,” Shah said.

“Has it always been done with full knowledge and support of our U.S. ambassadors in those countries, in every instance?” Leahy inquired.

“That’s the aspiration,” Shah said. “Is that the actuality?” Leahy pressed.

“I think for the major ones that I am most familiar with, absolutely, there are things we review, there are things our embassy teams are more than aware of,” Shah responded. Although he didn’t volunteer any discreet programs in other authoritarian countries, he pointed to a youth-empowering program in Kenya as a success.

Shah insisted that Congress was notified of the Twitter-like Cuba program called ZunZuneo in public budget justification documents since 2008. The USAID program, exposed Thursday by The Associated Press, reportedly enticed Cubans to participate in a cellphone-based forum with the ultimate aim of stirring anti-government dissent.

Leahy furiously denied being informed of the program after the initial disclosure and huffed Tuesday, “Talk about bureaucratese – if you can figure out this, you’re doing a lot better than most of us.”

Insisting it was disclosed, Shah said, “The notifications point out that we are working to increase the free flow of information and support civil society engagement using new technology. They specifically highlight work to reduce Internet restrictions to information, they highlight using new digital methods to increase information flow in and out of the island and they talk about work on Internet freedom. More detailed conversations took place in staff briefings.”

Shah, who took office in 2010, declined to say who at USAID was responsible for initiating the Cuba program. “I do not specifically [know]," he said.

Leahy said exposure of the “cockamamie idea” is inspiring fear among the agency’s employees around the world.

USAID’s Cuba work – including a separate project resulting in the 2009 arrest of American Alan Gross – may “taint all USAID employees around the world as spies,” he said.