Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that he had taken over as acting administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, assuming control of an agency that had functioned largely independently for over 60 years and stoking fears about U.S. assistance around the world.
Mr. Rubio’s announcement came after a week of drastic changes at U.S.A.I.D., the government’s lead agency for humanitarian aid and development assistance. Senior officials have been suspended, and hundreds of civil servants and contractors have been iced out of U.S.A.I.D. systems without warning.
Many of the cuts were rolled out in secret and without warning, as representatives of Elon Musk, who was deputized by President Trump to lead a task force to reduce government spending, took over its operations despite objections from aid workers and Democrats in Congress.
Speaking to reporters in El Salvador, Mr. Rubio said that many of U.S.A.I.D.’s programs were worthwhile and would continue under the umbrella of the State Department, promising to delegate the day-to-day operations to a person whom he did not name.
He added that the organizational change was prompted by what he described as efforts by U.S.A.I.D. officials to obscure details about their work and failure to cooperate with reasonable questions from the Trump administration.
Mr. Rubio faulted U.S.A.I.D. employees for “deciding that they’re somehow a global charity separate from the national interest or taxpayer dollars.” He added, “That sort of level of insubordination makes it impossible to conduct a sort of mature and serious review.”
Mr. Rubio’s criticism of U.S.A.I.D., the government’s main agency for distributing foreign humanitarian aid and development assistance, was still markedly softer than that of Mr. Musk, who has accused the agency of being a “criminal organization.” Early Monday morning he said that he and Mr. Trump had decided it was time to dissolve it.
“We’re shutting it down,” Mr. Musk said during a live chat on X, his social media platform, later adding in a post that “we spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper.”
On Sunday, Mr. Trump said U.S.A.I.D. was “run by radical lunatics” and promised to remove them.
U.S.A.I.D. employees were told overnight not to report to work on Monday because its Washington, D.C., headquarters would be closed, fueling fears that the already-hobbled agency would soon be shuttered for good.
The unusual staffwide directive was emailed out around 12:45 a.m. Eastern time, shortly after Mr. Musk’s announcement. But not all employees were able to read the note, as many had already been locked out of their accounts. Some reported being informed by text message not to come to the office.
Hundreds of contractors, who make up the bulk of the staff in field offices, lost access to their official emails and systems over the weekend, according to five people with knowledge of the changes. On Monday morning, many direct civil service hires also found they were unable to log into their accounts, the people said.
The draconian moves caught many U.S.A.I.D. employees off guard, some said in interviews. Though Mr. Trump had made known his disdain for foreign aid, they did not expect that their agency would be fully dismantled.
On Monday, over 100 U.S.A.I.D. employees gathered in front of the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, where the agency’s headquarters are, to protest the shutdown. Many held U.S. flags and homemade signs that said things like “Democracy died in complacency.” They were joined by a group of Democratic lawmakers, who railed against the closures, blaming Mr. Musk in particular as they egged on the protesters.
“We don’t have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk,” Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, told those gathered. Speaking directly to Mr. Musk, he added: “You don’t control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does.”
Democrats have denounced the U.S.A.I.D. shutdown as an illegal maneuver because Congress created and continues to fund the agency as a distinct entity. The federal government is currently funded through March 14.
“Any effort to merge or fold U.S.A.I.D. into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed and approved by Congress,” the Democrats on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee wrote in a letter on Sunday to Mr. Rubio.
The senators pointed out that they had received no notice that Mr. Musk’s task force would be entering U.S.A.I.D., or that they were trying to shut down operations.
Early Monday morning, employees of the agency’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance who still had active accounts were told they would be able to gain access to their offices in an annex building, according to an email from Dianna Darsney de Salcedo, the division’s deputy assistant administrator, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times. But by the time they arrived, the front turnstiles were not working, according to three people who were either at or directly in touch with those trying to enter the office.
Two men were standing at the entrance, two of the people said, in what appeared to be an effort to block people from entering. The men eventually stepped aside, and some employees were able to go inside.
Once in the office, the few dozen employees on site scrambled to gather their belongings and those of colleagues who had not been able to enter the building, stuffing trash bags and boxes full of personal items, including photos of their children and plaques of past awards, according to three people inside the building or directly in touch with those who were. Most of those inside had security clearances, and planned to stay until they were forced out, the people said.
Overseas, U.S.A.I.D. contractors were in effect left stranded, as contractors in foreign missions who had lost access to official systems — including those in conflict zones — wondered whether they would still enjoy the protection of the U.S. government, or if their travel back to the United States would be approved or reimbursed. With no official guidance, employees from Ukraine to Somalia were left to figure out how to finance their own way out.
Employees were particularly concerned about the implications of the rollbacks for the work of U.S.A.I.D.’s Gaza mission, based in Jerusalem, which is the main agency in charge of ensuring that U.S. humanitarian assistance keeps flowing to Palestinians in Gaza. The United States is a guarantor of the tenuous cease-fire struck between Israel and Hamas last month, as well as the largest single provider of assistance, the continuation of which is critical to ensure the cease-fire does not fall apart.
For others, the widespread loss of access exacerbated the panic that had already taken hold among agency employees, who have been bracing for a shutdown since representatives of Mr. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an ad hoc task force housed on the White House grounds, entered agency headquarters last week.
Two top security officials were put on administrative leave for trying to deny those representatives access to internal systems, including a secure space where classified materials were housed. By Monday, Mr. Musk’s deputies had seized control not only of the I.T. system, but the physical security and credentialing operations as well, according to a contractor familiar with the changes.
According to the contractor, two people, Luke Farritor and Gavin Kliger, were given high-level access to U.S.A.I.D. systems. Mr. Kliger, who has a role with the White House’s Office of Personnel and Management but is said to be an engineer on Mr. Musk’s task force, was also the person behind the email directing employees not to show up to the agency’s headquarters on Monday,according to a U.S.A.I.D. employee tasked to the agency headquarters. Mr. Kliger did not respond to requests for comment.
Employees who worked in an annex building used for U.S.A.I.D.’s Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance discovered the front turnstiles were not working, and that two men they had never seen before were standing at the entrance, in what appeared to be an effort to block it. The men eventually stepped aside, and employees entered the office. The annex is near the headquarters in the Ronald Reagan building.
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