Washington (AP) – The Trump Administration has placed two main security chiefs at the American agency for international development on leave after refusing to put classified documents in limited areas to government teams -inspection, Elon Musk, said current and a former American official L’Associated Press on Sunday.
Members of the Musk government’s Ministry of Effectiveness, known as Doge, finally had access to the classified information from the aid agency on Saturday, which includes intelligence reports, said the former official.
The Musk Doge Coal was missing enough security authorization to access this information, so the two USAID security officials – John Vorhees and the deputy Brian McGill – were legally forced to refuse access .
Current and former US officials were aware of the incident and spoke under the guise of anonymity because they were not allowed to share the information.
Musk responded on Sunday to an article on the news on X saying: “USAID is a criminal organization. It’s time to die. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comments.
It comes a day after Doge carried out an operation similar to the Treasury Department, have access to sensitive information Including social security and payment systems for health insurance.
Musk trained DOGE in cooperation with the new Trump administration with the aim of finding ways to dismiss federal workers, reduce programs and reduce federal regulations.
USAID, whose website has disappeared on Saturday without explanation, was one of the most targeted federal agencies by the Trump administration in an increasing repression of the federal government and many of its programs.
Help agency in upheavals
The Democratic senators warned the Trump administration on Friday against any effort to eliminate USAID as an independent agency, responding to growing fears among its supporters that such plans could be in sight.
Senator Chris Murphy was one of half a dozen democrats in the senatorial committee of foreign relations to argue in declarations and on social networks that President Donald Trump would have no legal authority to dissolve the Agency .
Aid organizations claim that the freezing of financing – and the deep confusion on what programs financed by the United States must prevent working accordingly – let them dye if they could continue to exploit programs such as those Who provide nutritional support 24 hours a day with extremely ill -fed infants and children, knowing that the doors’ closure means that many of these children die.
Current and former civil servants of the State and USAID Department declared that staff members were invited to submit requests to exempt certain programs from the Freild Aid Freeze, which Trump imposed on January 20 and the Department of State explained how to execute on January 24.
Three days later, at least 56 senior executives in the USAID career were suddenly placed on administrative leave.
Three officials said many of the persons on leave were lawyers involved in determining programs that could be eligible for derogations, helping to write proposals and submit these derogation requests because they thought they were invited to do.
The officials spoke under the cover of anonymity for fear of reprisals. A Trump administration directive that helps organizations to interpret as an order of gag has left them not to speak publicly for fear of permanently losing American funds.
In an internal memo on Monday on staff changes, the new acting administrator of the USAID, Jason Gray, said that the agency had identified “several actions within the USAID which seem designed to bypass the decrees of the president and the mandate of the American people ”.
“Consequently, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with remuneration and benefits until further notice while we finish our analysis of these actions,” wrote Gray.
A former senior USAID official said that people on leave had helped organizations to navigate the “confusing process” to search for derogations from the aid break for specific backup projects, such as the Continuation of clean water supplies for people displaced in war areas.
Others have been identified as having been involved in diversity, equity and inclusion programming, which the administration has prohibited.
On Thursday, a human resources official of the USAID who tried to reverse the action, claiming that there was no justification, was himself put on leave, according to two of the officials who had considered the emails internal and checked them as authentic. Journalists from Propublica and Vox first pointed out the emails on X.
The State Department and the White House did not respond to messages asking for comments on endowment changes.
The new USAID leaders suddenly dismissed the entrepreneurs who composed about half of the labor office of the humanitarian office of the Tuesday, eliminating them of systems so that some disappear in the midst of videoconferences, said the former senior official. Targeted institutional services entrepreneurs do everything, administration and support for travel processing and data analysis.
Staff changes occurred three days after the State Department published guidelines last Friday for the implementation of Trump’s decree freezing of foreign aid for 90 days. The ministry says that it examines the money that the United States spends to ensure that it adheres to the policy of administration.
The guidelines initially only exempted military aid in Israel and Egypt and emergency food programs, but also said that programs and implementators could request derogations from programs which, they say, would respond to the administration standards.
On Tuesday, the new Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, issued a broader exemption for programs that provide another “vital” assistance, including medicine, medical services, food and refuge, and once again stressed the possibility of derogations. Rubio underlined the expanded exemptions in an interview Thursday with the host of Siriusxm Megyn Kelly.
“We don’t want to see people die and others,” he said.
Rubio said there would be a program exam by program whose projects make “more safe, stronger or more prosperous America”.
The stage of closing programs financed by the United States during the 90-day examination indicated that the United States “obtained much more cooperation” of beneficiaries of humanitarian, development and security,, said Rubio. “Because otherwise you don’t get your money.”
The State Department said that since the entry into force of the aid, it has approved dozens of derogations, although many have been returned because they did not understand enough details. He indicated that requests for derogation for programs costing “billions of dollars” have been received and are being examined.
The ministry did not specify how many requests for renunciation had been refused, but said that until now, its shares have prevented more than a billion dollars from spending on programs and projects that are not aligned on An America First Agenda program. “”
Even with the expansion of exemptions for vital care, uncertainty surrounds what programs financed by the United States can legally continue. Hundreds of thousands of people around the world are content with access to medicine and humanitarian supplies and clinics do not obtain on time drugs due to the freezing of funding, provide assistance organizations.
AP Rebecca Santana journalist in Washington contributed.