Sens. Gary Peters (D-Mich.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) have challenged the legality of a recent order of United States Agency for International Development (USAID) leadership asking its staff to shred and burn the agency’s classified documents and personnel records.
The Democratic lawmakers wrote a letter Friday to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is the acting USAID administrator, to seek information on the matter, saying the explanation given by the Trump administration is “insufficient.”
Earlier this month, an email obtained by The Hill sent by USAID’s acting executive secretary directed remaining employees at the dismantled agencies to “shred as many documents as possible first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break.”
In their letter on Friday, Peters and Shaheen questioned if the order to shred and burn certain classified documents complied with the Federal Records Act (FRA), the federal law that requires the preservation of government records.
“While not all federal records are required to be preserved permanently, the FRA requires that records only be disposed of in accordance with an approved records schedule,” the senators wrote.
“The email does not make any distinction between categories of federal records and does not make any reference to approved agency records schedules. It is unclear whether additional orders were conveyed by other means,” they continued.
They further noted that in a court filing last week, attorneys from the Department of Justice asserted that these disposals did not violate the FRA because “they were copies of documents from other agencies or derivatively classified documents, where the originally classified document is retained by another government agency and for which there is no need for USAID to retain a copy.”
“This explanation is insufficient,” the senators said.
The order led to concerns over its impact on the ability of the public to observe the role the Department of Government Efficiency played at USAID.
Meanwhile, an organization representing USAID employees along with one representing contractors asked judges for a restraining order in two different suits, seeking to block the agency from destroying the documents. The organization argues the order could impact ongoing litigation and violate their obligation to retain relevant evidence.
