Dozens of top staffers for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have been placed on leave, according to reports, as the Trump administration continues its efforts to purge federal agencies.
The decision appears to be triggered by staffers attempting to get in the way of President Donald Trump’s orders, according to Acting USAID Administrator Jason Gray, who said in an email cited by Politico that they “identified several actions within USAID that appear to be designed to circumvent the president’s executive orders and the mandate from the American people.”
“As a result, we have placed a number of USAID employees on administrative leave with full pay and benefits until further notice while we complete our analysis of these actions,” Gray added.
This decision apparently went into effect on Monday, and the individuals affected are said to hold senior roles, covering about 60 positions. It remains unclear how long the leave will last.
Per Politico:
The order — sent via email to members of the senior executive and senior Foreign Service — was issued close to the end of the business day Monday and was effective immediately, according to two current USAID officials and three former USAID officials told of the communication. It comes as USAID and the State Department have been ordered to impose halts on a vast number of humanitarian and related programs around the world.
The decision follows one of President Donald Trump’s many day one actions, a directive aimed at reevaluating and realigning United States foreign aid.
“The United States foreign aid industry and bureaucracy are not aligned with American interests and in many cases antithetical to American values,” the order reads.
“They serve to destabilize world peace by promoting ideas in foreign countries that are directly inverse to harmonious and stable relations internal to and among countries,” it continues. “It is the policy of United States that no further United States foreign assistance shall be disbursed in a manner that is not fully aligned with the foreign policy of the President of the United States.”
As a result, there is “a 90-day pause in United States foreign development assistance for assessment of programmatic efficiencies and consistency with United States foreign policy.”
Trump ordered department heads in this sector to:
…immediately pause new obligations and disbursements of development assistance funds to foreign countries and implementing non-governmental organizations, international organizations, and contractors pending reviews of such programs for programmatic efficiency and consistency with United States foreign policy, to be conducted within 90 days of this order.
…
Reviews of each foreign assistance program shall be ordered by the responsible department and agency heads under guidelines provided by the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Director of OMB.
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The action comes as the Trump administration continues to weed out problematic actors and bureaucrats in federal agencies, with the Justice Department firing over a dozen lawyers who helped target Trump.
