The White House said the instruction was sent only to about three dozen employees, and that the documents that were being destroyed were old.
Some U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees have received instruction to empty classified safes and destroy agency records, according to a court filing on March 11 by employee unions.
The Democracy Forward and Public Citizen Litigation Group filed an emergency motion on behalf of the unions for a temporary restraining order to stop any destruction of evidence within USAID.
In its motion, the unions included a screenshot of an email from USAID’s acting executive secretary, Erica Carr, directing employees to clear out “classified safes and personnel documents” from the agency’s office in the Ronald Reagan Building starting 9.30 a.m. on Tuesday.
“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. The contents of the documents are unclear.
The unions alleged that Carr’s directive violates the Federal Records Act (FRA), which requires federal agencies to preserve internal records, and could destroy documents pertinent to their litigation to block the Trump administration from dismantling USAID.
“This directive suggests a rapid destruction of agency records on a large scale that could not plausibly involve a reasoned assessment of the records retention obligations for the relevant documents under the FRA or in relation to this ongoing litigation,” they stated.
The motion states that the plaintiffs had sought information from the Trump administration about the destruction efforts at USAID and were told the matter was under investigation.
However, the unions requested that the court intervene to stop the agency from destroying any documents while their litigation is ongoing.
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly stated on social media that the email was sent to “roughly three dozen employees” and that the documents being destroyed were outdated.
“The documents involved were old, mostly courtesy content (content from other agencies), and the originals still exist on classified computer systems,” she stated on the social media platform X about the concerns.
