Washington (AP) – The Trump administration and the billionaire Elon Elon Musk have excluded an agency that offers crucial assist to finance and combat hunger in overseas, causing a showdown with the congress democrats, which the efforts are illegal and have sworn a court campaign.
In one of the most dramatic efforts to push back President Donald Trump’s offer, to collect and remodel the federal government, some Democrats requested to enter the agency’s headquarters on Monday. They were blocked by officials from the expression of the lobby, and Foreign Minister Marco Rubio said he was the acting administrator of the agency, although it was independent for six decades.
While Trump spent the first three weeks of his up-to-date presidency to make the Federal Government broad changes, the speedy -moving developments at USAid have emphasized as a particularly controversial flash point at Democrats, which argue that this symbolizes the massive sharpness of power that is carried over Washington.
Trump told the reporters on Monday that she would have closed USAID “should have been closed a long time ago”. When asked whether he needs the congress to approve such a measure, the president said that he did not have it in the event of the case.
Congress democrats, who were hunted by a few hundred followers, swore to act outside of the Usid headquarters, where federal civil servants and yellow adhesive tape blocked both employees and legislators after they had defined Musk hours after the explanation: “We conclude it.”
“This is a constitutional crisis in which we are today,” said democratic Senator Chris Murphy.
Added Maryland Democrat Jamie Raskin: “We don’t have a fourth branch of the government called Elon Musk. And that becomes really clear. “
Thousands of USAI employees were dismissed in the two weeks since Trump became president and programs that were closed worldwide, the extraordinary power of Musk and his budget department for the government of the government, and the programs for foreign support imposed.
The United States is the world’s largest provider of humanitarian aid, and the movements have put the decades of US policy in the foreground, which give humanitarian, development and security support at the center of efforts to build alliances and controllers such as China and Russia. Trump, Musk and Republicans in Congress have made the US foreign assistance program a special goal that accuses the waste and promoted liberal social programs.
The United States spends less than 1% of its budget for foreign support, a lower proportion of as a whole than some other countries. Trump accused the bidges administration of fraud without giving evidence and later only promising a report.
“They were totally crazy about what they did and the money they gave people who shouldn’t get it, and agencies and others who shouldn’t get it, it was a shame, that is, an enormous fraud,” said reporters in the oval office .
Democrats push back
The legislator tried to enter the USAID offices in Washington and said they were talking to employees who remained about the dismantling of the agency. Officials and men from the Ministry of Homeland Protection and Men who identified themselves as USAID employees blocked them. “Elon Musk is not here,” said one to the legislature.
Senator Chris van Hollen from Maryland cited it as a “illegal takeover” and said that it was “a corrupt abuse of power that is going on”.
“It is not just a gift to our opponents, it is simply illegal to close the agency for international development through executive order,” he said.
The Democrats said that the court disabilities were already in the work and promised to try to block the approval of the Nominations of the Foreign Ministry of Foreign Affairs until the production was reversed. After the elections last November, the Democrats are in the minority in the house and in the Senate and let them reduce.
Musk announced the agency’s closure early Monday when Rubio was out of the country on a trip to Central America.
Rubio said reporters in San Salvador that he was now the incumbent administrator of USAID, but has delegated his authority to someone else. In a letter to the legislator, which was received by the Associated Press, Rubio Peter Marocco, a political representative, described a tiny stay at USAID in the first Trump administration, unusual employee protests against program cuts and investigations that complained about the ambassador and other high -ranking civil servants , slowed down the work to one crawl.
In his comments, Rubio emphasized that some and perhaps many USAID programs would continue in the up-to-date configuration, but the switch was necessary because the agency had not become accountable for the executive and the congress.
USAD’s work worldwide
The conservative Republicans have long tried to recall the status of USAID as an independent agency, while Democrats traditionally support their status as an independent agency. President John F. Kennedy founded USAID in 1961 at the United States’ struggle with the Soviet Union of the United States and applied for a more proficient path to counteract the Soviet influence abroad through foreign assist and to consider the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as frustrating.
The Trump freezing for foreign support and the goal of USAID, which monitors humanitarian, development and security programs in around 120 countries, has forced US and international companies to close tens of thousands of programs worldwide, which leads to primary, discharges and financial crises .
This includes a HIV/AIDS program founded by Republican President George W. Bush, who has attributed more than 20 million lives in Africa and elsewhere. AID contractors spoke of millions of dollars of medication and other goods that were now in the harbor that they were forbidden to deliver them.
Other programs that the schoolgirls in Afghanistan were under Taliban’s rule offered a spread of Ebola in Uganda. A crisis monitoring program supported by USAID, which was attributed to the prevention of repetitions of the famine of the 1980s in Uganda, in which up to 1.2 million people were killed, went offline.
Other organizations have registered bankruptcy or face it after they have been informed that USAID would not pay their bills for projects that have already been approved and implemented worldwide.
Senator Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, said Esid is not just about saving other countries from hunger and illness. “There is a reason why USAI is an arm of American foreign policy, and that is because we understand that a stable world means a stable America,” he said.
Last hit in USAID
The USA’s employees said that more than 600 additional employees had been excluded from the agency’s computer systems overnight. Those who were still received in the E -Mails system said that the building of the headquarters “at the instruction of the agency management” on Monday, February 3, will be closed for the agency’s staff “. The agency’s website disappeared on Saturday without explanation.
Musk leads an extraordinary civil review of the federal government with Trump’s agreement. The day started with the fact that Musk announced a live meeting with X -rooms that he had spoken in detail about the agency with Trump, and “he agreed that we should close it”.
“It turned out that it was not an apple with a worm,” said Musk early Monday in a live meeting on X rooms. “What we have is just a ball of worms. You basically have to get rid of the whole thing. It is beyond repair. “
Since Trump took office, the appointments from his first term have brought in, as Marocco brought more than 50 high -ranking civil servants into the investigation without public explanation and gutted the management of the agency. When the head of HR of the agency announced that the allegations against them were unfounded and tried to reset them again, he was also put on vacation.
At the weekend, the Trump administration placed two top security leaders on vacation in the USA after refusing to hand over a classified material to Musk’s government teams in restricted areas, said a current and a former American official.
Musks Doge previously carried out a similar company in the finance department and received access to sensitive information, including the social security and Medicare payment systems. The Washington Post reported that a high -ranking Ministry of Finance had resigned through Musk’s team, which would access sensitive information.
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Gomez Licon reported from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The AP writer Fatima Hussein in Washington contributed to this report.
