Washington – Trump administration and billionaire Ally Elon Musk He moved to the agency snapshots This gives key help in financing education and fighting hunger abroad, causing showdown with the democrats of Congress, who blew up the effort as illegal and swore judicial struggle.
In one of the most dramatic efforts to push back Offer by President Donald Trump for a reduction and transformation of the federal governmentSome democrats tried to enter the headquarters of the agency on Monday. They were blocked by officers of even a moving lobby, and the Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he was the agency administrator, although he was an independent organ for six decades.
While Trump spent the first three weeks of his novel presidency Making broad changes in the federal governmentQuick -moving changes in USAID have become a particularly controversial inflammatory point with democrats, who claim that it symbolizes the massive power of power musk over Washington.
Trump told journalists on Monday that the closing of USAID “should be done a long time ago.” Asked if he needs a congress to approve such a means, the president said he didn’t think so.
The Democrats Congress, cheered by several hundred fans, vowed to act in front of the USAID headquarters, where federal officers and yellow tape blocked both employees and legislators before entering the hours after Musk said: “We close it.”
“This is a constitutional crisis in which we are today,” said Senator Chris Murphy (D., Conn.).
Added Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin: “We do not have a fourth government unit called Elon Musk. And it will become really clear. “
Showing the extraordinary power of musk and its destruction Department of GovernmentThousands of USAID employees have been dismissed and programs are closed around the world within two weeks since Trump became president and imposed an extensive one Freeze.
The United States is the world’s largest supplier of humanitarian aid, and movements have increased in the decades of American policy, which put humanitarian aid, development and security at the effort center to build alliances and opponents, such as China and Russia. Trump, musk and republicans in the Congress made the American foreign aid program a special goal, accusing him of waste and developing liberal social programs.
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The United States spend less than 1% of their budget on foreign help, which means less share than some other countries. Trump accused Biden administration of fraud, without allowing any evidence and promising only the report later.
“They commissioned what they did, and the money they gave to people who should not get it, and agencies and others who should not get it, it is a shame, so a huge fraud,” Trump told journalists in an oval office.
Democrats are repelled
The legislators tried to enter USAID offices in Washington, saying that they want to talk to employees remaining on the dismantling of the agency. Officers of the Internal Security Department and men identifying as USAID employees blocked them. “Elon Musk is not here,” said one of the legislators.
Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland called him “illegal grabbing of power” and said that it was “corrupt abuse of power.”
“This is not only a gift for our opponents, but an attempt to close the international development agency on the basis of an executive order is ordinary illegal,” he said.
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Democrats said that court challenges were already underway and committed to blocking the approval of the nomination of the Trump State Department until the closure was reversed. Democrats are in the minority in the Chamber and Senate after the election in November last year, leaving them a reduced lever.
Musk announced the closing of the agency early on Monday as Rubio He was outside the country while traveling to Central America.
Rubio told journalists in San Salvador That he was now USAID administrator, but he gave his authority to someone else. In a letter to the legislators obtained by the Associated Press Rubio he appointed Peter Marocco, a political appointed, whose tiny time at USAID in the first Trump administration generated the unusual protests of Person.
In his comments, Rubio emphasized that some and perhaps many USAID programs will continue in the novel configuration, but the switch was necessary because the agency became unpredictable to the Executive and Congress.
USAID work around the world
Conservative Republicans have long been trying to undo the status of USAID as an independent agency, while Democrats traditionally support their status of an independent agency. President John F. Kennedy created USAID in 1961 at the peak of the Cold War of the United States with the Soviet Union, looking for a more effective way to counteract Soviet influence abroad with foreign help and perceiving the State Department as a frustrating bureaucratic.
Trump freezes foreign help and aiming in USAID, which supervise humanitarian, development and security programs in about 120 countries, forced us to closing tens of thousands of programs around the world to closing tens of thousands of programs, leading to Furloughs, releases and financial crises.
This includes the HIV/AIDS program founded by the Republican President George W. Bush attributed to saving over 20 million lives in Africa and other countries. Help contractors talked about millions of dollars in medicines and other goods, which now got stuck in the port that they must not provide.
Other programs that would close students’ education in Afghanistan based on the Taliban rule and monitored the ebol explosion spreading in Uganda. The monitoring program of the crisis supported by USAID, which was recognized as help in preventing hunger in Uganda from the 80s, which killed up to 1.2 million people, went offline.
Other organizations have submitted a request for bankruptcy or are facing it after it was said that USAID did not pay invoices for projects that have already been approved and implemented all over the world.
Senator Brian Scatz (D., Hawaii) said that USAID does not only apply to saving other countries from hunger and illness. “There is a reason why USAID is the arm of American foreign policy and because we understand that a stable world means stable America,” he said.
The latest hit to USAID
USAID employees have found that over 600 additional employees came from the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those who are still in the system received e -Mail with information that “in the direction of the management of the Agency” the building of the headquarters “will be closed to agency staff on Monday, February 3” the agency’s website disappeared on Saturday without explanation.
Musk conducts an unusual civil review of the federal government with the consent of Trump. The day began with the announcement of musk during a live session x Spaces that he talked to Trump about the agency for a long time and “agreed that we should close it.”
“It became clear that this is not an apple with a worm,” said Musk during a live session at the X Spaces on early Monday. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You must basically get rid of the whole matter. This is irrelevant. “
Since Trump, he took the office, the appointed brought from the first term, such as Marocco, placed over 50 higher officials on vacation to an investigation without a public explanation, looking at the agency’s leadership. When the head of the agency staff announced that the allegations against them were unfounded and tried to restore them, he also stayed on vacation.
At the weekend, the Trump administration placed the two best security bosses on USAID on leave After they refused to transfer secret material in areas circumscribed to the Musk government inspiring teams, said the current and former US clerk.
Doge musk previously carried out A similar operation in the Treasury DepartmentObtaining access to confidential information, including social clients’ payment systems and Medicare. The Washington Post informed that the senior tax official has resigned from Muska, who gains access to confidential information.
