DON'T SHRED ON ME!
USAID documents destruction breaks the law,
according to National Security Archive

Washington, D.C., March 12, 2025 – The acting executive secretary of the U.S. Agency for International Development Monday night ordered the destruction of classified records and personnel files, according to the March 10 email reported by The Guardian, The New York Times, and other outlets.

The email from Erica Y. Carr apparently convened remaining AID staff at the Ronald Reagan Building Tuesday morning at 9:30 a.m. to use shredding machines to get rid of classified records and personnel files, directly violating the Federal Records Act and the existing records retention schedules that protect such records.

“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” reads the March 10 email from Carr.

On Tuesday afternoon, federal workers unions suing the Trump administration for unlawfully terminating AID employees and programs asked the court to halt the “imminent and ongoing destruction of evidence” relevant to their litigation. Later that evening, parties to that case filed a joint status report in which the government said it would “not destroy additional documents stored in the USAID offices in the Ronald Reagan Building without affording notice to Plaintiffs” and that it would submit “a sworn declaration that will explain which documents were and were not destroyed.”

“The shredding party at the Reagan Building in Washington, putting classified foreign aid files and personnel records into burn bags, breaks the law and attempts to erase history,” said Tom Blanton, director of the National Security Archive. “We have 15 pending Freedom of Information requests at AID that will be thwarted – along with an unknown number of other requests from members of the public – by this illegal document destruction. This shredding undermines the rights of agency employees, removes essential evidence from current litigation and investigation over foreign aid, and prevents citizens from holding their government to account.”

The National Security Archive, an award-winning investigative journalism and research institute based at George Washington University, brought the original lawsuit in January 1989 against the Ronald Reagan White House that prevented the shredding of the White House email backup tapes. The Archive has sued every president since under the Freedom of Information Act and the records laws, seeking to preserve primary sources on the nation’s history and open them for journalists, scholars, and citizens.