The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) destruction of documents this week has triggered a legal battle over what the White House dismissed as “fake news hysteria.”
USAID acting executive director Erica Y. Carr instructed some staff to destroy “classified safes and personnel documents” at the agency’s Ronald Reagan Building headquarters in Washington on Tuesday, according to an internal email obtained by multiple mainstream news outlets.
“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” Carr wrote in the email, which provided detailed instructions on how to properly seal and label burn bags marked “SECRET.”
The American Federation of Government Employees and American Foreign Service Association, a union of federal workers, swiftly filed for a temporary restraining order to halt the document destruction, arguing in their filing that Trump overstepped his authority by shuttering the independent agency established by Congress. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols set a Wednesday morning deadline for both sides to submit a status report.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly downplayed the significance of the document disposal, writing on X that the email “was sent to roughly three dozen employees” and that “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!” Kelly said. Customs and Border Protection is planning to move into the USAID facility, and needs to take over the rooms.
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
Critics have claimed the destruction could violate the Federal Records Act, which prohibits the destruction of government records before their designated retention period — typically a minimum of three years.
The document purge comes amid massive upheaval at USAID following the Trump administration’s attempt to reshape the agency through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), led by Elon Musk. The agency has terminated thousands of employees and contracts, with Secretary Marco Rubio announcing Monday that 83% of U.S. foreign aid contracts had been canceled.
Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee had previously sent a letter to Rubio in February demanding answers about DOGE’s access to USAID headquarters and agency records.
“The 5200 contracts that are now cancelled spent tens of billions of dollars in ways that did not serve, (and in some cases even harmed), the core national interests of the United States,” Rubio wrote on X.