It sounds like a dire abuse of power: Over at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, D.C., headquarters of USAID, the Department of Government Efficiency-targeted agency is being asked to shred and burn documents.
Has Donald Trump’s administration gone rogue? Apparently not — despite all the media hype. Turns out that this is probably just business as usual and that the documents being “destroyed” have already been preserved by other means, according to a White House official.
During the course of the day Tuesday, several media outlets began reporting that employees for the U.S. Agency for International Development — which you probably know as the first big fish that DOGE hopes to fry in the federal alphabet soup sea — were being asked to burn contents of USAID’s “classified safes and personnel documents” by USAID acting executive director Erica Carr.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” Carr’s email said, according to Politico.
“Carr instructed staff to label the burn bags with the words ‘SECRET’ and ‘USAID/B/IO/’ (agency shorthand for ‘bureau or independent office’) in dark Sharpie,” the outlet reported.
CBS News also obtained the email and put it out on social media:
NEWS: USAID staff have been instructed to clear out classified safes and personnel docs, per an email obtained by @CBSNews.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email reads. pic.twitter.com/h7xS6y7Wsv
— Sara Cook (@saraecook) March 11, 2025
And, wouldn’t you know it, a union for federal contractors is now asking a judge to intervene, according to the Associated Press.
Are you excited to see USAID’s offices being cleared to make room for the Border Patrol?
“Judge Carl Nichols set a Wednesday morning deadline for the plaintiffs and the government to brief him on the issue,” the AP reported.
“A person familiar with the email who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal verified that it was sent to at least some essential personnel.”
“I’ve never seen something like this — en masse,” a former USAID staffer told Politico.
“Everyone with a safe is supposed to keep it up to date and destroy documents when they no longer need to be stored. Sometimes security will check your safe and tell you if you have to clean out old material.”
This all sounds like pretty scary stuff; doubtlessly visions of Watergate or Iran-Contra were dancing in the Washington press corps’ head. But behind all that was a paucity of context: What were the documents being destroyed, precisely? For that matter, why were they being destroyed? In the digital age, wouldn’t this exist elsewhere in some way, shape, or form? And if the media didn’t know any of this or simply wasn’t providing the context in its reports on the shred-and-burn, why exactly was it a story?
At least Politico decided to bury the White House’s reaction to this — provided by spokeswoman Anna Kelly in a social media statement — way, way down in the article:
“This was sent to roughly three dozen employees,” Kelly wrote, noting that the documents were being destroyed because the space was soon to be occupied by Customs and Border Protection.
The USAID building will soon be occupied by CBP.
This was sent to roughly three dozen employees. The documents involved were old, mostly courtesy content (content from other agencies), and the originals still exist on classified computer systems.
More fake news hysteria! https://t.co/MLP84Mvn0t
— Anna Kelly (@AnnaKelly47) March 11, 2025
“The documents involved were old, mostly courtesy content (content from other agencies), and the originals still exist on classified computer systems,” she added. “More fake news hysteria!”
And, as Reuters noted, this comes as the administration continues to wind down USAID, one of the left’s favorite foreign-aid propaganda organs.
“Under Trump, the foreign aid agency has scrapped more than 80 percent of its programs and fired much of its staff,” Reuters reported.
And that’s the thing: The Ronald Reagan Building, where USAID is located currently, also houses the CBP, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the General Services Administration, among others. Let’s face facts — unless the Ghost of Foreign Aid Future visits Elon Musk in his sleep and convinces him that USAID is essential (and while divine intervention is capable of all things, that seems a bit of a stretch given what we know about USAID), the agency is either getting 1) folded into the State Department or 2) disappearing entirely.
That being said, over the past few years, the government has squandered a lifetimes’ worth of benefit of the doubt to be automatically trusted with shredders and burn bags — which is why this is a story. Of course, this sort of thing wouldn’t be covered under the Biden administration; under Trump, it’s a four-alarm fire. (Figuratively, anyway; I’m assuming they didn’t just burn these suckers in the middle of the Ronald Reagan Building to draw the DCFD to the joint.)
However, given what we know, this does appear to be a non-event. In fact, had these sensitive documents not been shredded and burned, it would probably be more of a story. Unless the media can produce solid evidence that there’s malfeasance here, in other words, this indeed is “more fake news hysteria” until proven otherwise.
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