Dozens of senior personnel within the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, have been placed on administrative license until further notice, and hundreds of contractors have had their license or completed job, several sources told CBS News. This followed the Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s Order last Friday that stopped immediately in virtually all foreign aid assistance by the United States worldwide.
CBS News spoke with a dozen of current and previous staff of USAID who were granted anonymity to speak openly.
An email obtained by CBS News and sent from the interim administrator of USAID, Jason Gray, to the USAID staff, declared on Monday that “several USAID employees” were placed on administrative license with full salary and benefits to an additional notice after “Several actions within USAID that seem to be designed to avoid the executive orders of the president and the mandate of the American people” were identified.
Approximately 60 higher employees within USAID have been suspended, including attendees and attached administrators who run most of their offices, leaving the agency without clear leadership, said five sources familiar with internal action with CBS News. The majority of those placed on license were public career officials and foreign service officers. They also included USAID lawyers in the general advisor’s office, who are responsible for interpreting implementation executive orders.
A source told CBS News that affected people were told to “go home and not communicate with anyone” in Usaid. Two sources told CBS News that some of the people in question were physically escorted outside the building.
CBS News also learned that several hundred contractors in USAID have been suspended or fired, according to six sources familiar with the action. Some have been notified that they have been immediately fired without the payment of compensation and that their benefits will expire in only three days, at the end of January, while others who have been fired have been told that their benefits will remain in force until the end of February.
Rubio’s order is part of an administration’s effort to comply with President Trump’s campaign promises to reduce the size of the Federal workforce, and Looking for places to cut Which sees as a wasteful government expenditure. Mr. Trump has long sustained that other nations are not contributing enough when it comes to foreign aid, and that the United States is taking the worst part of the load. But critics say such cuts could undermine the position of the United States in the world and create an opening for China and other adversaries that seek to exert their influence abroad.
In response to Rubio’s mandate to stop Federal Foreign Assistance, Stop-Worork orders were issued on Monday and Tuesday to companies that have contracts with USAID and the State Department.
The termination letters sent to two contractors obtained by CBS News decay: “This letter is to inform you that as of January 28, 2025, its use with [federal contract holder] It will end due to a dismissal of the contract. Unfortunately, [federal contract holder] He received a work stop order, and without authority to proceed, we have no job for you to do. “
There is a language in the termination letters that read: “We hope that this situation will be temporary and can return to their positions.” However, the email accounts of the employees with the USAID and the contracting company closed, and the termination cards were later sent to their personal emails, the sources said.
A source said that USAID staff had rushed to submit requests for exemptions for programs once Rubio sent the order.
“Then they physically escorted USAID’s leadership. The exemption process was a joke,” said the source.
“Usaid is absolutely destroyed,” said another source from the agency. “This is surgical to stop programs. Lives are at stake here. We are endangering lives.”
The state department spokesman Tammy Bruce told journalists on Tuesday night that “staff has received a workforce for exemption requests.” Bruce also echoed a line that was in Rubio’s initial order, telling journalists that “specific exemptions include foreign military financing for Israel and Egypt, and emergency food assistance, for which the secretary has approved the exemptions ”
But the State Department has not yet provided a clarification on whether some foreign aid programs financed by the United States are now automatically exempt, or if all programs worldwide must still request an exemption to try to choose to receive funds in the states Joined. The Association press and Reuters He reported on Tuesday that Rubio has now approved an exemption that applies to “central medicine to save lives, medical services, food, refuge and subsistence assistance.”
In the copy of the initial order obtained by CBS News last Friday, Rubio said to all the diplomatic and consular positions of the United States to immediately issue “stop orders” for existing foreign assistance awards “, pending revision of the secretary of state
Rubio had also declared in his initial order that the “exceptions” to the pause approved by the Director of Foreign Assistance of the State Department are also exempt, without specifying more which are those exceptions. CBS News learned that Pete Marocco, former Deputy Secretary of African Affairs In the pentagon, Now he is serving in a senior direction role within the State Department Foreign Assistance Office – Internally known as ‘F’ – which supervises the foreign assistance programs administered by the State Department and the USAID.
“I am so devastated [as] What has just taken place, “said an impacted source of Usaid.” We enjoyed the work we had done and how it contributed to help people around the world. What happened was not right at all. This has never taken place in any change in the administration, “they said, and added that they had respected the change and had been” hoping to build a relationship with the new administration for better. “
Two USAID contractors now expressed deep concerns about having potentially mortal health conditions, in a case exacerbated by frequent work trips, and suddenly they found themselves without medical insurance after the end of the month of Friday.
“Our contractor could have paid us for two weeks. Or at least until next week so we could have health insurance until February,” says USAID contractor whose job was completed on Tuesday. “It feels apocalyptic. Each email felt like a threat that started last week and then followed.” The source added that in his office on Monday and Tuesday “people were in disorder and beating … people are terrified.
Several USAID contractors were also terminated last week without licensed or receiving compensation as a result of the executive order aimed at Diversity, equity and inclusion programs. This included people who were not Dei advisors, or had no main work functions related to DEI, but who may have contributed to collective efforts in the workplace focused on inclusion and accessibility in the Biden administration.
The termination letters sent to those employees on Thursday night on Thursday night said: “Effective immediate position”.
Multiple sources also told CBS News that in several buildings of the USAID annexes with headquarters in Washington, DC, the photographs that hang from the programs and beneficiaries of the agencies have been stripped of the walls. The elimination of photographs “is not a normal protocol” among the administrations, said a source.
“They are physically dismantling things in the building,” said a second source. “They are erasing our existence,” said a third.
CBS news
CBS news
Contractors of the USAID Global Health Office: the department responsible for projects that cover the treatment of HIV/AIDS, maternal and child health, malaria, tuberculosis and other infectious diseases, were among the termination notices on Tuesday. According to two sources, all contractors of the Global Health Office, approximately 450 technical experts, were canceled. These contractors represent about 50% of all USAID global health personnel, leaving only about 450 direct hiring still used in that office.
The president’s emergency plan for AIDS relief, or Pepfar, initiated by the administration of George W. Bush in 2003, is among the sudden notable government programs arrested Since Rubio issued the order, potentially interrupting the provision of antiviral medications (ARV) for millions of patients with HIV and AIDS worldwide. According to the State Department, Pepfar has saved the lives of 26 million people since it began.
Although the funds could become waiting for the result of a 90 -day review, there is also a growing concern among defenders that Congress to Pepfar is in danger due to a revelation earlier this month that groups They receive help make abortions, which is a violation of US law. Reuters They reported that four nurses in Mozambique had made 21 abortions since 2021. That revelation can also be part of the next review of the State Department.
Currently, 20.6 million people around the world are taking drugs that save lives due to Pepfar, a source told CBS News, so the freezing funds in US help could lead to “hundreds of thousands of deaths, particularly for women and children, depending on the duration of the freezing duration. ”
“This is a crime against humanity,” added the source.
“This purge is not precedents, it is a threat to our national security, it makes the United States less safe and it seems [to be] Suggestion of the Congress Authority, “said a former USAID employee.
“For me, this is a non -mitigated hostile acquisition of our democracy,” said another source affected by the freezing of federal assistance. “USAID is only the first victim. But more will come imminently. With the intention of exercising power for any purpose they feel.”
Margaret Brennan contributed to this report.
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