A USAID worker deployed to the Democratic Republic of Congo described a chaotic scene as he was leaving the country in a rush following the abrupt Trump/Musk shutdown of the agency.
Virginia Democratic Congressman Don Beyer is highlighting the account from “Marcus Doe,” which Beyer is calling “an absolute scandal.”
“Trump abandoned American workers and their families abroad as they tried to comply with his order to return to the United States,” said Beyer, alluding to Doe’s account, which was filed as part of a lawsuit brought by USAID workers against the Trump administration.
Doe’s account: Utter chaos
According to Doe, “dozens of USAID senior leaders were placed on administrative leave without notice or explanation and were cut off from USAID information systems” on Jan. 27, after a weekend of unrest in Congo after M23 rebels took control of Goma, a city in the eastern part of the country.
“Many Congolese citizens view western nations, including the United States, as having culpability for M23’s ongoing war in eastern DRC. The fall of Goma led to rumors of protest in the capital city of Kinshasa the following week,” said Doe in his affidavit, with the situation blowing up on Jan. 28.
At some point that morning, Doe, “along with others at USAID, learned via messages from another USAID employee that there were protesters outside his house setting fires and causing damage,” with the security situation put in peril because “the executive order pausing foreign assistance prevented USAID from obligating money to fund travel, and therefore USAID would be unable to fund the cost of the evacuation of its staff,” according to Doe.
ICYMI
- Coalition of state AGs files federal suit challenging Elon Musk, DOGE
- DOGE illegally slashes $1B in research contracts at Department of Education
- Democratic AGs win injunction blocking Trump/Musk raid of federal Treasury
Staff made it out with their lives and what they could carry with them on a boat on their laps, with career staff leading the effort “despite perceived risks that they may suffer retaliation for attempting to spend money to save lives,” Doe said.
“By the time we landed in Dulles, news reports were swirling that President Trump and Elon Musk were actively planning to shutter USAID,” Doe said. “While State Department and USAID staff welcomed us home and offered us food and warm clothing, we were being aggressively maligned by Musk and Trump as a ‘criminal organization’ composed of ‘marxists’ who ‘hate America’ that ‘needs to die.’
“Musk bragged about missing parties to ‘feed USAID into the woodchipper.’ The President called USAID staff ‘radical lunatics’; both repeatedly and publicly asserted their intent to close the Agency,” Doe said.
“Trump administration officials have cut off my Agency’s capacity to pay me what I am owed,” said Doe, adding that “hotel costs have not yet been paid or reimbursed, and it is unclear at the time of writing whether they will ever be paid.”
“Despite my need to make long-term financial and other commitments regarding my life and lifestyle, the Agency that employs me makes unexplained short-term threats to my employment with no indication of any plan for what I can expect in the coming days, let alone in the coming months,” Doe said.
“The chaos of the Trump administration’s haphazard and extra-constitutional shutdown of USAID has caused my family and me immense emotional distress by contributing to the already intense sense of panic and uncertainty of the riots in Kinshasa,” Doe said. “My family has left behind our home and all our belongings as a result of our service to the United States of America overseas, and we have been harassed through a combination of malignant, violent rhetoric and threats of financial ruin from the officials effecting this shutdown.”
Beyer: ‘Astounding display of incompetence and apathy’
Beyer may have been understating it when he called what we just read about here “an astounding display of incompetence and apathy.”
“Trump and Secretary Rubio issued orders that left Americans in locations around the world locked out of communications and financial systems they needed to make a safe return,” Beyer said. “This story is not an isolated incident, I have been contacted by another constituent whose daughter, a USAID worker, was stranded overseas without access to internal communications or the reimbursement system USAID workers use to secure travel arrangements.
“Trump and Rubio were attacking these hardworking civil servants, and Elon Musk was slandering them with bogus accusations of ‘fraud’ that he made up, as they lost their possessions, housing, and money. All this for the ‘crime’ of devoting their careers to serving their country, at times under dangerous conditions. This is a disgraceful and embarrassing episode in American history, and it may take a long time to repair the damage Trump just did,” Beyer said.
Share
Chris Graham
