Importantly, the actual document that Rubio sent up to the Hill yesterday contradicts Elon's assertion that the agency is gone.
And contra Elon, it also acknowledges that any major re-org of US aid policy must involve Congress.
This is notable because outside of the twitter echo chamber, the USG still runs based on laws - a reality that the document acknowledges multiple times.
It's clear they still aim to absorb USAID into State - but they're also acknowledging they can't do so unilaterally.
Meanwhile Congress has affirmed that same reality.
Outside of Elon's twitter feed, here's where things actually stand:
- DOGE staff acting on unclear legal authority have attempted to unlawfully shut down a federal agency
- In doing so they have compromised sensitive government personnel, procurement, and classified info systems
- These actions have badly disrupted critical US-funded activities around the world and placed taxpayer-funded resources and assets at grave risk of waste or abuse
- US personnel operating overseas have been put at grave risk by being expelled from Embassy security & oversight
- USAID continues to exist as a legal entity, per State Dept notice to Congress; Rubio & Marocco in charge
- But most staff at the agency are being obstructed from carrying out their lawful duties
- Congressional funding mandates are being violated by the State funding freeze
- Russia is cheering all of this on from the sidelines (wonder why??)
- And vital USAID programs that save lives and advance US values and interests around the world remain disrupted and frozen.
To be clear: this situation is still a disaster. But there are some hopeful signs here that this attack on USAID will not pass unchallenged.
The whole episode says a lot about the sincerity of whoever is pulling the strings at GHF.
First instinct is to put out a gaslighting press release denying the massacre reports, while pretending that whatever happens outside their perimeter has nothing to do with them.
Only after *another* massacre (which they also initially try to debunk) does GHF belatedly acknowledge that...maybe...there are some issues with an aid model that forces huge crowds of hungry people to cross long distances and then clusters them along IDF force positions.
"We will take your baby and deport you without her.”
Blockbuster new report from us @RefugeesIntl and our partner @humanrights1st documenting shocking stories of asylum seekers unlawfully disappeared, abused, and expelled by Trump's @CBP and @ICEgov.
Read on. 🧵
Our teams interviewed numerous asylum seekers who have been unlawfully expelled from the US to Costa Rica, Panama, and their home countries (where they face real risk of persecution or torture, likely constituting refoulement).
We found a consistent pattern of government abuse and deception intended to subvert legal oversight and to deny people's rights.
Some of these accounts appear consistent with the practice of enforced disappearance under international law.
Aid leaders have been warning for 2 months that the gutting of @USAID would leave US unable to respond to major global disasters.
We are now seeing that play out in real time with the Myanmar quake - reality is calling bullshit on the Trump admin's narrative.
🧵
In today's press briefing @statedeptspox bizarrely "rejected the premise" that a meaningful US response requires USAID staff "to be physically there."
As the guy who used to deploy those teams - this is total nonsense.
You can't conduct search-and-rescue virtually. Come on.
The reality is that other countries began deploying their teams immediately - and the US would have too, under any prior administration (including Trump 1).
But Elon, Pete Marocco, and Rubio have wrecked the USG's ability to do this.