USAID Ordered to Destroy Its Records
Salting the earth and breaking the law.
POLITICO (“USAID official tells staffers: Shred and burn your documents“):
A senior official at USAID instructed a number of the agency’s remaining staff to convene at the agency’s now-former headquarters in Washington on Tuesday for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents stored there, many of which contain sensitive information.
The materials earmarked for destruction include contents of the agency’s “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, said an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr, and obtained by POLITICO.
“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.
Given that USAID exist[ed] under Congressional charter and receives annual funding from Congress, the authority by which DOGE, Secretary of State Rubio, or even President Trump can shutter it legally is questionable. But the purpose here is obvious: to salt the earth, making it very difficult to reconstitute the agency if and when the courts settle the matter. (In the fantasy world envisioned by James Madison in Federalist 10, Congress itself would jealously defend its prerogatives. We do not live in that world.)
If I understand the training that I’m required to complete on an annual basis, this seems to be a rather clear violation of the Federal Records Act of 1950. As noted at the National Archives site,
§ 3101. Records management by agency heads; general duties
The head of each Federal agency shall make and preserve records containing adequate and proper documentation of the organization, functions, policies, decisions, procedures, and essential transactions of the agency and designed to furnish the information necessary to protect the legal and financial rights of the Government and of persons directly affected by the agency’s activities.
[…]
§ 3105. Safeguards
The head of each Federal agency shall establish safeguards against the removal or loss of records the head of such agency determines to be necessary and required by regulations of the Archivist. Safeguards shall include making it known to officials and employees of the agency–
(1) that records in the custody of the agency are not to be alienated or destroyed except in accordance with sections 3301-3314 of this title, and
(2) the penalties provided by law for the unlawful removal or destruction of records.
§ 3106. Unlawful removal, destruction of records
(a) FEDERAL AGENCY NOTIFICATION.—The head of each Federal agency shall notify the Archivist of any actual, impending, or threatened unlawful removal, defacing, alteration, corruption, deletion, erasure, or other destruction of records in the custody of the agency, and with the assistance of the Archivist shall initiate action through the Attorney General for the recovery of records the head of the Federal agency knows or has reason to believe have been unlawfully removed from that agency, or from another Federal agency whose records have been transferred to the legal custody of that Federal agency.
(b) ARCHIVIST NOTIFICATION.—In any case in which the head of the Federal agency does not initiate an action for such recovery or other redress within a reasonable period of time after being notified of any such unlawful action described in subsection (a), or is participating in, or believed to be participating in any such unlawful action, the Archivist shall request the Attorney General to initiate such an action, and shall notify the Congress when such a request has been made.
This seems not to be happening here.
One would think that one of the litigants in the USAID imbroglio would ask the judge to step in and order the preservation of records. Every effin’ day Trump/Musk/Vought dare Congress to do its job, and every day the spineless GOP Congress takes a knee, but only after braying about “Joe Biden’s mess,” and the awesomeness of Trumpolini.
As with most things Trump, it comes down to “what are they going to do about it?”
The answer is “nothing”.
As you mentioned, Federalist 10 is dead.
Like, I understand that people will be facing jail time and worse, but it really is time for the Federal Government to start leaking like a burst dam.
Infuriating
This can’t be legal. But the Trumpists will appeal and delay and no matter what the courts eventually say, it’s hard to de-shred the records. Can’t risk someone being able to show the value of USAID’s work.
(There was a case many years ago of a bank accidentally shredding several bags of canceled checks and having a warehouse full of temps sort them and tape them back together. Like the edges of a jigsaw puzzle, the variety of colors, textures, and borders on checks gave them a starting point.)
@Charley in Cleveland:
I believe Congressional Republicans generally like where this is going and that they naively believe that if it all goes south they will not be blamed, Trump and Musk will be blamed.
@al Ameda:
At the rate Congress people get reelected, I’m not sure “naively” means what you think it does. I’m no longer sure 2026 will get a shift in the balance in the House unless Republicans retire en masse.
@gVOR10: Thanks to advances in OCR/computer vision, reassembling shredded paper isn’t that bad any more. Burnt stuff, on the other hand . . .
Are you sure this is true? Or at least a sensible portrayal of the issue? My understanding is that most documents were “courtesy content” (from other agencies), and probably more importantly, the records exist on classified computer systems.
@al Ameda:
They’re being paid by the oligarchs and the oligarchs are good with Trump.
@gVOR10:
A substantial majority of voters who vote Republican are perfectly happy with Trump, they really like him – even fly flags, the most enthusiastic. Republicans in the HOR are pretty similar to their voters – any who are not big Trump fans know they can either go along or get harassed by MAGA’s (perhaps violently) and exiled as RINO’s. HOR GOP leaders are all big Trump fans, so they all know what the program is.
@just nutha:
I generally agree. Congressional district maps are baked in and very few districts are truly in play vis-a-vis a Party change. Maybe if they cut back Social Security and Medicare, but even then.
@Connor: It doesn’t really matter what the documents are, they are required, by law, to follow the correct procedures for document retention. They are not.
If they are courtesy content from other agencies, the proper protocol is to record the return of the content to the originating agency, or given the go-ahead by the federal records agency for how to dispose of them. Personnel records should not be destroyed this soon after mass dismissals as they are very likely records subject to litigation.
This is not appropriate, and is very very very likely illegal.
@Connor: So your argument is that if only a small percentage of the documents in question are important, that it’s okay to bypass the requirement requiring consultation on destruction of documents with the archivist’s office?
Allllllllrightie then.
@just nutha: more like if trump wants to do it, it is all good.
@just nutha: Look, most of the documents in Trump’s Glorious Toilet/NatSec Storeroom were just regular things. I mean, only a few were valuable to show off.
@Jen:
I hear you. But I think the legal language is the the records must be “reasonably kept” as opposed to absolutely.
It’s a question. Not an assertion.
@Connor: Maybe you should “do your own research”. Find out the laws and such. Then get back to those of us who are questioning your morals.
@Connor: IANAL, but I believe “reasonably kept” refers to the manner in which they are kept, not whether or not they are kept. In other words, if it is too time consuming to scan certain older records, they must be kept in physical form.
One of the big concerns about this mass shredding/burn bag event is that there is a requirement that if a record is not already stored electronically, the agency is required to scan in the record before destroying it. There’s an entire process for checking, etc.
Maintaining government records is a pretty cut and dried mandate, all the way down to local government.
@Jen:
Thanks