Unspent aid worth billions lacks oversight as Trump dismantles USAID, watchdog warns

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. Agency for International Development has lost almost all ability to track $8.2 billion in unspent humanitarian aid following the Trump administration’s foreign funding freeze and idling of staffers, a government watchdog warned Monday.

The administration’s fast-moving dismantling of the agency has left oversight of the aid “largely nonoperational,” USAID’s inspector general’s office said. That includes a greatly reduced ability to ensure that no assistance falls into the hands of violent extremist groups or goes astray in unstable regions or conflict zones, the watchdog said.

The Trump administration’s actions have “significantly impacted USAID’s capacity to disburse and safeguard its humanitarian assistance programming,” it said, also citing the risk of hundreds of millions of dollars in commodities rotting after staff was barred from delivering it.

The inspector general, however, also noted that it has “longstanding concerns about existing USAID oversight mechanisms.”

Meanwhile, the administration and billionaire ally Elon Musk continued their unraveling of the aid agency. The General Services Administration, which manages government buildings, told The Associated Press that it had stripped USAID from the lease on its Washington headquarters.

Staffers — some dressed in USAID sweatshirts or T-shirts — were blocked from going upstairs to their offices Monday. Guards, federal officers and officials stopped some from retrieving their belongings.

“Go home,” a man who identified himself as a USAID official told some staffers. “Why are you here?”

The eviction from the building, which USAID had occupied for decades, follows a court late Friday temporarily blocking a Trump administration order that would have pulled all but a fraction of workers off the job worldwide.

Two workers’ groups that sued over the targeting of USAID asked the court on Monday to find the Trump administration in violation of the judge’s order, after some workers were still locked out of USAID’s systems.

The government’s steps suggest it “intends to continue taking potentially irreversible steps to dismantle the agency” before the court can issue a final ruling in the case, the employee associations said. Another hearing is scheduled for Wednesday.

Trump and Musk, who runs what is billed as a cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency, have taken aim at other government agencies. But USAID has been hit hardest, with Trump and Musk accusing the agency’s work around the world of being out of line with Trump’s agenda and wasteful.

A Trump appointee at the heart of the sweeping changes at USAID defended the shutdown of the agency in a court filing Monday, saying Trump officials have been faced with “noncompliance” and “insubordination” from staff.

Peter Marocco, USAID’s recently appointed deputy administrator, submitted an affidavit Monday in the lawsuit brought by employees’ groups.

In it, he accuses USAID staff of stalling and resisting the administration’s funding freeze and what he described as a program-by-program review. Marocco said that made it necessary to pull all but about 600 staff off the job.

Trump signed an executive order Jan. 20 freezing foreign assistance, forcing U.S.-funded aid and development programs worldwide to shut down and lay off staff. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he had sought to mitigate the damage by issuing a waiver to exempt emergency food aid and “life-saving” programs.

But USAID officials and aid groups say neither funding nor staffing have resumed to allow even the most essential programs to start work again.

The Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the largest humanitarian groups, called the U.S. cutoff the most devastating of any in its 79-year history. It said Monday that it will have to suspend programs serving hundreds of thousands of people in 20 countries.

“The impact of this will be felt severely by the most vulnerable, from deeply neglected Burkina Faso, where we are the only organization supplying clean water to the 300,000 trapped in the blockaded city of Djibo, to war-torn Sudan, where we support nearly 500 bakeries in Darfur providing daily subsidized bread to hundreds of thousands of hunger-stricken people,” the group said in a statement.

In an interview with Fox News host Bret Baier that aired Sunday before the Super Bowl, Trump suggested that he might allow a handful of aid and development programs to resume under Rubio’s oversight.

“Let him take care of the few good ones,” Trump said.

Aid organizations say the damage that has been done to programs would make it impossible to restart many operations without additional substantial investment.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols on Friday temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that would have put thousands of USAID staffers on administrative leave that day and given those abroad just 30 days to get back to the United States at government expense.

While the judge ordered the administration to restore agency email access for staffers, the order said nothing about reopening USAID headquarters. Some staffers and contractors reported having their agency email restored by Monday, while others said they did not.

The inspector general advisory notice said the Trump administration’s moves would cut 90% of the staff in USAID’s Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs.

The cutoff of funds means that the monitors charged with making sure no U.S. aid in the Middle East or Central Asia reaches the Islamic State group, Hezbollah, the Houthis or Hamas have been told not to come to work, the watchdog said.

The watchdog office noted that it had pushed USAID last year to boost its training of agency staff to make sure that those monitors were properly screening for any such diversion of aid.

In Washington, some staffers said they came to the USAID on Monday offices because they were confused by conflicting agency emails and notices over the weekend about whether they should go in. Others expected they would be turned away but went anyway.

A USAID email sent Sunday night, saying it was “From the office of the administrator,” told employees that what it called “the former USAID headquarters” and other USAID offices in the Washington area were closed until further notice.

Ellen Knickmeyer, The Associated Press