This is the sort of thing you see during revolutions, a war being lost or a consulate having to be evacuated. Having an arm of the government do something like this really shows that the people running USAID think they lost a war to an enemy power and are destroying any incriminating evidence.

A senior official at USAID instructed a number of the agency’s remaining staff to convene at the agency’s now-former headquarters in Washington on Tuesday for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents stored there, many of which contain sensitive information.

The materials earmarked for destruction include contents of the agency’s “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, said an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr, and obtained by POLITICO.

The email didn’t provide any reason for the document destruction. The building is being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted routine document destruction timetables. Customs and Border Protection is planning to move into the USAID facility, having rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the building last month.

Why does USAID even have classified documents in sufficient numbers that they need to be burned en masse?

This isn’t the State Department proper. It’s supposed to dispense international aid. Apart from information about local conditions, why is USAID maintaining what it claims are classified documents?

But this is the same USAID that refused to cooperate with the SIGAR watchdog even under Biden. Staffers warned that it was at risk of liability for dealing with terrorists. A law-abiding agency doesn’t need to do a mass all-day burn session before customs moves into the building.

PHOTO: Use according to Section 27 A