Washington (AP) – The United States Agency staff for International Development (USAID) was instructed not Musk announced that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, had agreed to close the organization.
USAID workers said they had identified 600 employees who said they were expelled from the agency’s computer system during the night. Those who continued in the system received internal emails indicating that “by order of the agency’s leadership”, the headquarters “will be closed to the agency staff on Monday, February 3”.
Musk, who leads an extraordinary civil audit of the federal government with the approval of the Republican president, had said the early hours of Monday that he had spoken with Trump about the Aid and Development Agency, formed six decades ago, and had “accepted that we must close it ”
“It became evident that it is not an apple with a worm inside,” said Musk. “What we have is simply a ball of worms. You have to get rid of everything. It has no remedy. ”
“We are going to close it,” he added.
Musk, Trump and some Republican legislators have criticized the aid and development agency in quite hard terms, which supervises humanitarian security and development programs in some 120 countries, and accuse the organization of defending progressive causes.
During the weekend, the government suspended two outstanding USAID security chiefs from its jobs after they refused to submit classified material in restricted areas to Musk’s government inspection equipment, as they told The Associated Press on Sunday a current American official and a former official.
Members of the Musk government efficiency department, known as Doge, made a similar operation in the Treasury Department, where they obtained access to sensitive information such as the payment systems of Social Security and Medicare clients. The Washington Post reported that a high treasure officer had resigned because the Musk team accessed sensitive information.
Democratic legislators have rejected the measures and say that Trump has no constitutional authority to close Usaid without authorization from Congress. They have also condemned Musk’s access to sensitive information guarded by the Government through their inspections to federal agencies and programs, authorized by Trump.
USAID, whose website disappeared on Saturday without explanation, has been one of the federal agencies most attacked by Trump’s government within a growing repression against the federal government and many of its programs.
“It has been directed by a lot of radical lunatics. And we are taking them out, ”Trump told reporters about USAID on Sunday night.
The comments of Musk and Trump arrived while the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, was out of the country, in Central America, on his first trip abroad in office. Rubio has not made public statements about plans to close Usaid.
The Trump and Rubio government have imposed an unprecedented freezing in foreign assistance that has closed a large part of the humanitarian, development and security programs of USAID worldwide, and ordered suspensions and permits that have decimated leadership and Agency staff in Washington.
Peter Marocco, a political appointment that returns from Trump’s first mandate, was one of the leaders in closing execution. Usaid employees said that the people who presented themselves at the agency with visitors identifications and asked the employees within the headquarters in Washington were members of the Musk Doge team.
Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said in a publication on Sunday that Trump was allowing Musk to access people’s personal information and suspend government financing.
“We must do everything in our power to resist and protect people from damage,” said Massachusetts senator, without giving details.
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This story was translated from English by an AP editor with the help of a generative artificial intelligence tool.
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