By The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) is being dismantled under the Trump administration, and a senior official has directed employees to start shredding documents. This directive, issued by acting executive secretary Erica Y. Carr, instructed staff to clear out safes and personnel files by shredding documents or placing them in burn bags for incineration. The instruction came ahead of a planned meeting at the agency’s headquarters and highlights the swift deconstruction of USAID under Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is overseeing the process.
Politico first reported the story.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email said. Carr instructed staff to label the burn bags with the words “SECRET” and “USAID/B/IO/” (agency shorthand for “bureau or independent office”) in dark Sharpie.
The email didn’t provide any reason for the document destruction. The building is being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted routine document destruction timetables. Customs and Border Protection is planning to move into the USAID facility, having rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the building last month.
The effort also underscores the tumultuous way in which the Trump administration is dismantling an agency that once managed a $40 billion annual budget and had more than 10,000 staff around the world.
The document purge raised questions about whether any of the materials should be archived or otherwise retained for legal and historical reasons.
Legal experts and advocacy groups have raised concerns about whether this document destruction complies with federal records laws, noted The New York Times. The Federal Records Act of 1950 mandates that government agencies must seek approval from the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) before disposing of official records. It remains uncertain whether USAID followed these procedures. The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA), representing career diplomats, has condemned the directive, emphasizing the importance of preserving government records for transparency, accountability, and the integrity of legal proceedings. The organization also warned that employees participating in unauthorized document destruction could face legal consequences.
This move is particularly significant given ongoing lawsuits challenging the administration’s handling of USAID’s mass layoffs, budget freezes, and restructuring. The administration has taken an aggressive approach to shutting down the agency, including widespread terminations, contract cancellations, and freezing foreign aid funds. Last month, Rubio appointed Pete Marocco, a controversial figure from the State Department, to manage daily operations. Marocco has worked with a team linked to billionaire adviser Elon Musk to halt aid disbursement and restructure USAID’s workforce.
On Monday, Rubio announced that 83 percent of USAID’s contracts, covering over 5,200 agreements, had been canceled. The remaining contracts will be transferred to the State Department, where only a limited number of USAID employees may be reassigned. The termination of the agency’s headquarters lease further signals the final phase of its shutdown. Legal scrutiny has intensified, with a federal judge recently ruling that the executive branch lacks the authority to withhold Congressionally approved aid funds and ordering the government to resume payments.
Over the past two months, USAID has been heavily criticized after its books were opened and the public realized that what had once been an agency dedicated to spreading goodwill for the United States had transformed into a slush fund for leftwing social causes.
Former Senate candidate Hung Cao, whose father was a USAID worker, recently wrote, “In Afghanistan, there was a push for female police officers and empowering gender equality. A lot of these female officers were the first targets of the Taliban after it easily seized control of Afghanistan after the disastrous U.S. withdrawal. While serving in Afghanistan, it dawned on me that the USAID I remembered growing up — my father’s agency, bringing people in remote villages in Niger, Zaire, Guinea and Cameroon what they needed — had morphed into an agency that brings people what the aid workers want.
In Pakistan, they wanted blankets and tarps to last through the winter, not gay and transgender-affirming entertainment. In Iraq, they wanted stability, not the Cloud. In Afghanistan, they wanted to be free from the oppressive Taliban that doesn’t allow women’s voices to be heard in public.
It seems as if those who have taken over USAID in recent years have become more concerned with shaping the world to look like what they think America should look like, rather than giving people in need basic human necessities like food, water and shelter.
We discovered this past week, thanks to Elon Musk, that the agency has indeed become the left’s slush fund. Besides spending $2.5 million for a DEI program in Serbia, $70,000 for a DEI musical in Ireland, $47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia and $32,000 for transgender comic books in Peru, we are now finding out that USAID has given millions to Soros-backed enterprises.”
The White House downplayed the shredding of documents in a press conference earlier on Tuesday.
