‘It’s like we’re in the Soviet Union’
To sum it up, USAID officials went ahead and disbursed $153 million in payments for completed work, all while a funding freeze mandated by Trump was in place, which sent acting agency head Peter Marocco into a frenzy.
How spending $153M to pay its bills put USAID in DOGE’s crosshairs.
Aides to the president and Elon Musk suspected USAID officials were trying to go around a funding freeze.
Pete Marocco was furious.
It was Thursday, Jan. 23, and the Trump administration official had discovered that the U.S. Agency for International Development recently made $153 million in payments for a range of expenses. Marocco, who was effectively running the agency from the State Department, demanded to know why the money was sent, according to five people familiar with the incident.
Just three days earlier, newly inaugurated President Donald Trump had issued an executive order halting new foreign aid spending, and Marocco was already drafting a diplomatic cable, due to go out the next day, that specified even current foreign aid funds had to be frozen for at least three months, pending a review. Was USAID trying to do an end-run? MORE