USAID Staffers Told To Stay Out Of Washington HQ After Musk Said Trump Agreed To Close It | EUROtoday
WASHINGTON (AP) — Staffers of the U.S. Agency for International Development had been instructed to remain out of the company’s Washington headquarters on Monday, in response to a discover distributed to them, after billionaire Elon Musk introduced President Donald Trump had agreed with him to close the company.
USAID staffers stated additionally they tracked greater than 600 workers who reported being locked out of the company’s pc techniques in a single day. Those nonetheless within the system acquired emails saying that “at the direction of Agency leadership” the headquarters constructing “will be closed to Agency personnel on Monday, Feb. 3.”
The developments come after Musk, who’s main a rare civilian evaluate of the federal authorities with the Republican president’s settlement, stated early Monday that he had spoken with Trump in regards to the six-decade U.S. help and improvement company and “he agreed we should shut it down.”
“It became apparent that it’s not an apple with a worm it in,” Musk stated in a dwell session on X Spaces early Monday. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You’ve got to basically get rid of the whole thing. It’s beyond repair.”
“We’re shutting it down,” he stated.
Musk, Trump and a few Republican lawmakers have focused the U.S. help and improvement company, which oversees humanitarian, improvement and safety packages in some 120 international locations, in more and more strident phrases, accusing it of selling liberal causes.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration positioned two prime safety chiefs at USAID on depart after they refused to show over labeled materials in restricted areas to Musk’s government-inspection groups, a present and a former U.S. official instructed The Associated Press on Sunday.
Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, referred to as DOGE, earlier carried out an identical operation on the Treasury Department, having access to delicate data together with the Social Security and Medicare buyer cost techniques. The Washington Post reported {that a} senior Treasury official had resigned over Musk’s group accessing delicate data.
Democratic lawmakers have protested the strikes, saying Trump lacks constitutional authority to close down USAID with out congressional approval and decrying Musk’s accessing delicate government-held data by means of his Trump-sanctioned inspections of federal authorities companies and packages.
USAID, whose web site vanished Saturday with out clarification, has been one of many federal companies most focused by the Trump administration in an escalating crackdown on the federal authorities and plenty of of its packages.
“It’s been run by a bunch of radical lunatics. And we’re getting them out,” Trump stated to reporters about USAID on Sunday night time.
Musk’s and Trump’s feedback got here with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in another country, in Central America, on his first journey overseas in workplace. Rubio has not spoken publicly about any plans to close down USAID.
The Trump administration and Rubio have imposed an unprecedented freeze on international help that has shut down a lot of USAID’s help packages worldwide — compelling 1000’s of layoffs by help organizations — and ordered furloughs and leaves which have gutted the company’s management and employees in Washington.
Peter Marocco, a returning political appointee from Trump’s first time period, was a frontrunner in implementing the shutdown. USAID staffers say they imagine that company outsiders with guests’ badges asking questions of workers contained in the Washington headquarters are members of Musk’s DOGE group.
Go Ad-Free — And Protect The Free Press
Support HuffPost
Already contributed? Log in to cover these messages.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren stated in a put up on Sunday that Trump was permitting Musk to entry folks’s private data and shut down authorities funding.
“We must do everything in our power to push back and protect people from harm,” the Massachusetts senator stated, with out giving particulars.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/usaid-told-to-stay-out-of-hq_n_67a0b372e4b00fe4ac32f222