USAID official orders staff to destroy classified documents

‘Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,’ says the memo.

Staff at USAID were ordered to destroy classified documents and personnel records, according to a memo from a top official, prompting fresh legal challenges as well as alarm from the union that represents foreign service officers.

“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” says the memo, a copy of which was seen by Bloomberg News. It was signed by USAID Acting Executive Secretary Erica Carr.

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The State Department, which oversees USAID, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

In response to the directive being made public, two separate legal challenges were filed seeking to stop the destruction of the documents. Lawyers representing USAID contractors in one lawsuit filed an emergency request for a court order forcing the government “to preserve all documents with any possible relevance to pending litigation.”

In the filing, the lawyers said they’d already asked a Justice Department lawyer for an explanation but hadn’t yet received one. “The only response has been ‘we’re looking into this,’” they wrote in their emergency request.

Plaintiffs in another lawsuit against USAID also sought a temporary restraining order on Tuesday, alleging the government issued “a broad, short-fused directive to shred and burn documents immediately — today — that concern the structure, function, and activities of USAID.”

Democratic staff on the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee have also reached out to the State Department and USAID for details on compliance with federal record keeping, according to a congressional aide.

Carr issued the order on Monday, the same day that Secretary of State Marco Rubio officially canceled the vast majority of USAID contracts and put the remainder under the purview of the State Department.

That move essentially eliminates USAID as a standalone entity. It follows the Trump administration’s broader efforts to curtail US foreign aid spending and terminate most of the aid agency’s 10,000 employees, with thousands fired or placed on leave.

“There’s no reason for USAID to be destroying records,” said Lauren Harper at the Freedom of the Press Foundation. “As USAID’s successor agency, the State Department is supposed to take control of USAID’s records.”

The American Foreign Service Association, a group that represents State Department and USAID employees and is involved in one of the legal actions against the Trump administration, is alarmed by the directive, the group said in a statement. It said the documents “may be relevant to ongoing litigation regarding the termination of USAID employees and the cessation of USAID grants.”

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“Federal law is clear: the preservation of government records is essential to transparency, accountability, and the integrity of the legal process,” the group said.

The Federal Records Act of 1950 requires federal agencies to preserve records and there are strict guidelines about the destruction of documents.

In its emergency motion, lawyers for the AFSA argued that destroying classified files and personnel records could prevent USAID from resuming normal operations and make it impossible to “recreate and rebuild agency programming” in the future.

At the same time, Harper of the Freedom of the Press Association said the matter is complicated because Rubio is technically in charge of three separate agencies.

He not only leads the State Department but was named acting administrator for both USAID and the National Archives and Records Administration, which is “supposed to step in and investigate when federal records are being destroyed,” she said.

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