Trump Admin Suspends Top Brass at USAID

I got a heads-up from somebody I know at the State Department that this happened yesterday, and now the cat is out of the bag. 

The top brass at the U.S. Agency for International Development was kicked out the door and suspended for defying Trump’s Executive Orders, which, for federal employees, have the force of law.

“The Trump administration placed several dozen senior officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development on administrative leave in response to what an official characterized as resistance to President Trump’s policy.”https://t.co/CGOJEyMPss

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) January 28, 2025

To be clear, E.O.s are not the law in the sense that you and I think of them; they are statements of policy that have the force of law for employees of the federal government and can be changed at the will of the president. For the purpose of federal employees, they amount to the same thing, and #resistance is equivalent to breaking the law. 

An EO is a declaration by the president which has the force of law, usually based on existing statutory powers, and requiring no action by the Congress. They are numbered consecutively, so executive orders may be referenced by their assigned number, or their topic. A sitting U.S. President may overturn an existing executive order (Federal Register. Executive Orders. All Executive Orders Since 1994) by issuing another executive order to that effect. (American Bar Association. What Is an Executive Order? 10/9/2020.)

Well, the head honchos at USAID apparently FA, so they FO. 

The Trump administration placed several dozen senior officials at the U.S. Agency for International Development on administrative leave in response to what an official characterized as resistance to President Trump’s policy.

An email on Monday to U.S.A.I.D. staff from the agency’s acting administrator, Jason Gray, said that Trump officials “have identified several actions within U.S.A.I.D. that appear to be designed to circumvent” an executive order.

Mr. Gray did not provide further details on those actions, but added that as a result “a number of USAID employees” had been placed on leave “with full pay until further notice.”

One person briefed on the new order said that it covered about 60 senior officials at the agency. Another person said the officials placed on leave included the leaders overseeing global health aid, one of the largest parts of U.S.A.I.D.

You can imagine why the executives balked at following Trump’s directives. As people whose very job is to manage foreign aid, they no doubt were devastated to see their life’s work halted for 90 days. 

Then again, elections have consequences, and while some of these grants no doubt do some good, many are simply insane. Remember those grants in Afghanistan teaching women about LGBTQ+/-% rights? 

Mr. Gray’s email appears to reflect Trump officials’ determination to ensure that federal workers carry out even his most dramatic orders — and to move them out of the way if they will not. In this case, the directive in question is almost certainly an executive order Mr. Trump signed last week to freeze nearly all U.S. foreign aid funded by U.S.A.I.D. and the State Department.

“He is initiating a review of all foreign assistance programs to ensure they are efficient and consistent with U.S. foreign policy under the America First agenda,” the State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, said in a statement on Friday.

Trump’s move is part of his “shock and awe” strategy, putting everybody on notice that resistance is futile this time around. 

Will these drastic measures result in some suboptimal results? No doubt. But they are necessary in order to clean out the rot that is everywhere in our government. We don’t need to fund drag queen story time in El Salvador, and because government executives can’t be trusted to follow the president’s policies, the only alternative to drastic action is letting the Deep State run wild as they have in the past. 

Trump got elected on a promise to fundamentally reform government, and he obviously means it. 

Heads will roll, and it is glorious to see.