Washington—Some U.S. Agency for International Development employees have been directed to clear out classified safes and personnel documents from the Ronald Reagan Building, where the agency is housed, and shred or burn the records, according to two sources’ screenshots of an email sent to USAID staff and obtained by CBS News.
USAID staffers received an email from USAID acting executive secretary Erica Carr directing them to clear out classified safes and personnel documents, beginning at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday. The shredding instruction regarding sensitive documents was first reported by ProPublica.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email reads. If you need to use the burn bags, do not overfill, and ensure the burn bag can be closed with staples at the top. The only labeling required on the burn bags are the words ‘SECRET’ and ‘USAID/(B/IO)’ in dark sharpie if possible. If you need additional burn bags or sharpie markers, please let me or the SEC InfoSec team know.”
The documents being ordered destroyed could be evidence for multiple court filings against the Trump administration and the government aid agency, one source familiar with the instructions about the handling of USAID records told CBS News.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said on social media, “The USAID building will soon be occupied by CBP,” and that the email was sent to “roughly three dozen employees.” She claimed the documents being destroyed were “old, mostly courtesy content (content from other agencies), and the originals still exist on classified computer systems.”
An administration official told CBS News that today’s actions were part of the process for U.S. Customs and Border Protection to be housed in that building, to clean up the work spaces involved in the transfer. The official also echoed what Kelly said about the content of the documents.
Of the roughly three dozen USAID staff who received the email, all had a Secret level security clearance or higher, and none were on administrative leave, the official told CBS News. The staffers were all appointed by the departments that the documents pertained to, and any documents from a particular bureau or office that didn’t have someone who met those specific requirements to handle them were being held accordingly, according to the official.
The official said the move was “fully compliant” with the Federal Records Act.
USAID staff also received another email around midday, Tuesday, instructing them to come by the USAID annex offices in Washington this Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to retrieve personal belongings. The email obtained by CBS News reads, “Staff will be given 15 minutes to complete this retrieval and must be finished removing items within their time slot only.” The email also appears to contradict the other email on how records should be handled.
“While collecting their items, staff must ensure that proper records management practices are employed when identifying and/or disposing records, pursuant to the Federal Records Act and ADS 502,” the email said.
On Tuesday, Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group filed a motion for an emergency temporary restraining order to stop what they called the unlawful destruction of federal records at USAID.
The State Department has so far not responded to CBS News’ requests for comment on either the email or the list of USAID grants that have been terminated by the State Department. On Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio tweeted from his personal X account confirming that 83% of USAID programs have been canceled.
In response to a question from CBS News on if and when the full list of terminated grants will be made available to the public during last week’s State Department press briefing, spokesperson Tammy Bruce said she did not yet have an answer on this. She added, “It’s important, because many Americans have questions about the nature of the details of what’s happening.”
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