Five people familiar with the situation told NBC News that USAID’s director of security and his deputy were placed on administrative leave on Saturday for attempting to bar staff from the Department of Government Efficiency from using safe USAID systems.
According to three of the individuals, the DOGE team attempted to access secret systems and personnel data from USAID, which were beyond the security level of at least some DOGE employees. According to two of the sources, the computers also contained information about agency employees’ security clearances.
“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Katie Miller, a former employee of Trump’s first administration who now works for DOGE, added in a Xon Sunday post.
According to two of the sources, the DOGE staff threatened to contact the U.S. Marshalls when USAID Director of Security John Voorhees and his deputy Brian McGill refused to let them in. According to three of the sources, the DOGE staff eventually managed to access the encrypted systems, but it was unclear what data they were able to view.
Elon Musk, the Trump-aligned tech entrepreneur and co-head of DOGE, posted on X this past weekend, asking for USAID “to die” and accused the independent agency of being a criminal organization without providing any supporting documentation.
More than a dozen current and former officials and sources familiar with the discussions have told NBC News that Trump administration officials are actively considering transferring USAID’s authority to the State Department. Democrats and legal experts have argued that this would be a violation of a law passed by Congress that established the agency.
Requests for comment were not immediately answered by Musk, USAID, or the State Department.
The agency’s website, USAID.gov, went dark on Saturday and appeared to be out as of Sunday night. However, a webpage for USAID that is not on the homepage, state.gov, is operational.
Following the then-near-total freeze on U.S. global assistance imposed by the Trump administration just over a week ago, more than 1,000 USAID employees and contractors—including more than 300 in the Global Health Bureau and 600 in the Humanitarian Assistance Bureau—have already been let go or placed on furlough.
Several of the agency’s communications staff were prevented from using internal systems to communicate with other staff members this week, according to another source, and the majority of the 125-person Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs was placed on administrative leave late Saturday as part of the most recent staff cuts.
One USAID official told NBC News that nobody feels comfortable going anywhere close to the Ronald Reagan building. Elon Musk recently referred to us as a criminal enterprise. Our chief of security was led away. We are aware that DOGE is monitoring us.