‘Unlawful power grab’: Democrats declare war on DOGE amid ‘Elon takeover’ of government agencies
Washington: Kristina Drye doesn’t know if she still has a job. Over the weekend, the USAID speechwriter lost access to her computer. When Monday morning came, colleagues told her there was an email instructing them to work from home.
“I can’t work from home because I can’t get on my computer,” Drye, 31, said. “So I came here to see what I could do.”
Demonstrators outside the US Agency for International Development (USAID) headquarters in Washington.Credit: Bloomberg
“Here” was outside the US Agency for International Development (USAID) building in central Washington – the headquarters of America’s foreign aid and development agency.
It’s where Democratic members of Congress joined protesters and agency staff to sound the alarm about what they called a wholesale takeover of the US government by President Donald Trump’s billionaire friend Elon Musk and his so-called department of government efficiency (DOGE).
The scene was, in its own quiet way, extraordinary. Locked out of the building, staff and contractors cheered as elected lawmakers attempted to enter the building to demand answers about what was happening. They were briefly allowed through the front doors but prevented from meeting officials.
“They would not let us in because they had orders from DOGE and Elon Musk not to,” Maryland senator Chris Van Hollen said. “People should understand that this has been an Elon Musk takeover of USAID and we need to stop them there.”
Massachusetts congressman Jim McGovern claimed: “This is a brazen attempt by a billionaire who nobody voted for to illegally and unconstitutionally steal from taxpayers so he can give himself a tax break.
“I’m sorry that you have to put up with this offensive bullshit coming out of this White House.”
The aid agency has been subject to remarkable attacks by Musk, backed by Trump, as his team of cost-cutters runs the ruler through government departments. Musk called it a “criminal organisation” and likened it to an apple full of worms.
“It’s beyond repair … We’re shutting it down,” Musk said, claiming Trump agreed with that course of action. Trump said the agency was full of “radical left lunatics” and once they were purged, further action would be determined.
Senator Brian Schatz, a Democrat from Hawaii, speaks outside the USAID headquarters in Washington, DC.Credit: Bloomberg
On Monday (Tuesday AEDT), the State Department confirmed Trump had appointed Secretary of State Marco Rubio as acting administrator of USAID, and a review into its activities was under way “with an eye towards potential reorganisation”.
But the Musk-led attack on USAID and reports that Musk’s team had gained access to the Treasury’s massive payments system spurred Democrats into action.
On the Senate floor, minority leader Chuck Schumer said Musk now had “unprecedented access to the most sensitive payment data in the entire federal government”, including social security, income tax refund data, Medicare, Medicaid and veterans’ benefits.
“We don’t know what DOGE intends to do with this information,” he said, of Musk whose relationships with anti-Western world leaders have raised security concerns.
“If you want to know how an unelected, shadow government operates, look no further than DOGE ... We must halt this unlawful and dangerous power grab.”
The DOGE is not an actual government department, but a team established within the Executive Office of the President. Musk is now considered a “special government employee”, the White House said – a designation that allows the world’s richest man to work for the federal government but potentially avoid disclosure rules about conflicts of interest and finances that apply to regular government positions.
Musk remains chief executive of electric vehicle firm Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX.
Trump said Musk had only been given access to data related to “letting people go if they’re no good … and it’s only if we agree with him”.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval,” he said. “We’ll give him the approval where appropriate; where not appropriate, we won’t. If there’s a conflict, we won’t let him get near it.”
White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt listed four examples of USAID waste, including $US1.5 million ($2.4 million) she said it had spent on advancing diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) practices in Serbia, $US70,000 on a DEI musical in Ireland, $US47,000 for a transgender opera in Colombia and $US32,000 for a transgender comic book in Peru.
“I don’t know about you, but as an American taxpayer, I don’t want my dollars going towards this crap,” she said. This masthead has not independently verified the claims.
Republicans have long raised concerns about wasteful spending on foreign aid, as well as other government programs. One of them, Iowa senator Joni Ernst, said she had been stonewalled by USAID for years when trying to gain access to information about expenditure of taxpayers’ money.
Billionaire businessman Elon Musk has commandeered computers of the US government.Credit: AP
“We love to feel good about helping starving children in name-your-country, but it’s not going there,” she said in an X Spaces session with Musk. “It’s going to pay rents in Paris, it’s going to support somebody’s fancy dinner, to entertain whoever.”
But Drye, the USAID speechwriter, said the agency – and its tens of billions of dollars of aid and development expenditure – was one of the most watched in the federal government.
“Any sector can be reformed and improved, but this is not a good-faith effort to do that,” she said. Drye took particular umbrage to Musk’s depiction of USAID staff as worms infecting an apple.
“As someone who has studied the decline of institutions and atrocities, that is an immediate red flag for me to not trust anything else he says.”
with Reuters
Get a note directly from our foreign correspondents on what’s making headlines around the world. Sign up for the weekly What in the World newsletter here.