A brief message posted late Tuesday night on USAID's website states, "On Friday, February 7, 2025, at 11:59 pm (EST) all USAID direct hire personnel will be placed on administrative leave globally," except for select employees in "mission-critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs. Essential personnel expected to continue working will be informed by Agency leadership by Thursday, February 6, at 3:00pm (EST)."

The government will arrange return flights for all USAID workers stationed outside the United States within 30 days. The administration "will consider case-by-case exceptions and return travel extensions based on personal or family hardship," such as children's school term, "personal or familial medical needs, pregnancy, and other reasons."

"Thank you for your service," concludes the message.

Earlier in the week, the Trump administration placed USAID under the leadership of Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Former employees say the agency, which is supposed to distribute foreign aid to nations around the world, has long been engaged in promoting far-left political agendas.

"Much else of what the agency does is not helpful and is, in fact, often counterproductive," Mark Moyar, who served as director of USAID's Office of Civilian Military Cooperation in the first Trump administration, told "Washington Watch" on Monday. "They've spent huge amounts on DEI, on dubious climate change initiatives, advancing radical LGBT policies. I think those sorts of things we will see getting cut and eviscerated here in the very near future."

Deeply entrenched, thoroughly corrupt grants were the norm, rather than the exception, as well as a culture of deceit, he said.

"There are people in the agency, including me, who thought there is a lot of waste, fraud, and abuse. When we tried to report that, we became targets, and the bureaucracy has sought to protect itself and put its own interests first. That's why I think you're seeing these drastic measures," said Moyar. "In the first Trump administration, it was very difficult to get the career bureaucracy to go along with what the administration, the State Department, wanted to do." Placing the agency under the purview of the State Department will "eliminate any sort of disparities between what USAID and State are doing."

The White House produced a litany of USAID grants promoting transgenderism and critical theory around the world at US taxpayer expense, often in traditionally Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christian nations.The list includes:

• $2 million for sex changes and "LGBT activism" in Guatemala
• $47,000 for a "transgender opera" in Colombia
• $32,000 for a "transgender comic book" in Peru
• Funding to print "personalized" contraceptives birth control devices in developing countries
• $1.5 million to "advance diversity equity and inclusion in Serbia's workplaces and business communities"
• $70,000 for production of a "DEI musical" in Ireland
• "Hundreds of thousands of meals that went to al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Syria"
• $2.5 million for electric vehicles for Vietnam

Aside from the items listed by the White House, USAID created a "Disinformation Primer" in 2020-2021 in collaboration with the State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC). GEC, which was shuttered last month, strayed outside its legal functions to partner with NGOs which attempted to censor the constitutionally protected speech of American citizens.

USAID also partnered with the Ukrainian oil company Burisma Holdings Ltd. in its Municipal Energy Reform Program (MERP) beginning in October 2014—just months after then-Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter Biden, took a well-compensated seat on its board. ...Biden would pardon his son for any crimes he committed from 2014 until last December, a nearly 11-year window. Preemptive pardons for other family members, including his brother James, followed.

More controversial programs yet may be taking place due to the agency's secretive nature. "It's very hard to get a handle on this," said Moyar. Federal bureaucrats generally, and USAID employees in particular, rank as "masters at hiding the money" from popular oversight. "Three years into the Trump administration, we were still finding out about programs that had been hidden by the career staff."

USAID was intended to distribute foreign aid to starving people around the world, who might otherwise embrace a communist revolution. President John F. Kennedy established USAID by signing Executive Order 10973 in November 1961, at the zenith of the Cold War. On the few USAID functions that fulfill their stated purpose, "One of the biggest problems they have is massive overpayments to contractors. And so, there in itself you can see a lot of savings," said Moyar.

"Foreign aid was originally supposed to be a largely temporary measure after World War II. And the plan was we would phase it out— and we did phase it out in Europe" after the Marshall Plan. "But it's become perpetual in much of the world, and a lot of it simply is unnecessary or wasteful," explained Moyar, who now teaches military history at Hillsdale College. Until World War II, politicians in both parties considered foreign aid unconstitutional according to the original intent of the Founding Fathers.

USAID now distributes 60% of all US foreign aid, approximately $43.8 billion a year. One out of every five US foreign aid dollars went to Ukraine in 2023. Critics accuse the agency of working with foreign NGOs to foment domestic political revolutions. "Most governments don't want USAID funds flowing into their countries because they understand where much of that money actually ends up. While marketed as support for development, democracy, and human rights, the majority of these funds are funneled into opposition groups, NGOs with political agendas, and destabilizing movements," said Nayib Bukele, president of El Salvador.

Democrats made a political stand over the agency, accusing the duly elected president of overthrowing constitutional order by reeling in USAID. "Before our very eyes, an unelected shadow government is conducting a hostile takeover of the federal government," stated Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in a conspiracy-laced speech on the Senate floor. (Screengrab image: via X)

"[S]hutting down USAID puts American security in danger," he asserted without proof.

"This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like. When you gut the Constitution and you install yourself as the sole power, that is how dictators are made. What Trump and Elon and all of their cronies are trying to do is take away the constitutional power of Congress," thundered Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) during a rally Democratic officials staged at USAID headquarters.

Under the Constitution, the president of the United States appoints the head of USAID, and the Trump administration "can propose and execute structural changes related to USAID and State, including shifting certain functions from USAID to State," according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here

Ben Johnson is senior reporter and editor at The Washington Stand.

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