USAID security leaders removed after refusing Elon Musk’s DOGE employees access to secure systems

The U.S. Agency for International Development’s director of security and his deputy were placed on administrative leave Saturday after trying to prevent employees from the Department of Government Efficiency from accessing secure USAID systems, five sources familiar with the events told NBC News.

The USAID systems the DOGE team tried to access included personnel files and security systems, including classified systems beyond the security level of at least some of the DOGE employees, according to three of the sources. The systems also included security clearance information for agency employees, two of the sources said.

“No classified material was accessed without proper security clearances,” Katie Miller, who worked in Trump’s first administration and has since joined DOGE, said in a post to X on Sunday.

When USAID Director of Security John Voorhees and his deputy Brian McGill refused to allow them in, the DOGE employees threatened to call the U.S. Marshalls, two of the sources said. The DOGE employees were eventually able to gain access to the secure systems, according to three of the sources, but it was not clear what information they were able to obtain.

This weekend, Elon Musk, the Trump empowered tech billionaire and co-head of DOGE, posted on X calling for USAID “to die” and accusing the independent agency, without offering evidence, of being a “criminal organization.”

“Reports that individuals without appropriate clearance may have accessed classified USAID spaces as well as American citizens’ personal information are incredibly serious and unprecedented,” Ranking Member of Senate Foreign Relations Committee Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., told NBC News. “We are seeking immediate answers about any implications for our national security and are bringing a group of bipartisan Senators together on this as soon as the Senate comes back tomorrow.”

Trump administration officials are actively discussing placing USAID under the authority of the State Department, according to more than a dozen current and former officials and sources familiar with the discussions, NBC News has previously reported, a move that Democrats and legal experts have argued would violate a law adopted by Congress establishing the agency. 

The State Department, USAID and Musk didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

“We are going to follow the process, evaluate all of these individuals that are in our country, including the Venezuelans that are here and members of Tren de Aragua,” said the secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem on Fox News.

On Saturday, the website for the agency, USAID.gov, went dark and remained apparently offline as of Sunday evening, but a website for USAID off the homepage state.gov is active. 

More than 1,000 USAID employees and contractors, including more than 300 people in the bureau of Global Health and 600 in the Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, have already been fired or furloughed from the agency in the wake of the near-total freeze on U.S. global assistance implemented by the Trump administration just over a week ago.

In the latest slashes to staff, the majority of the 125-person Bureau for Legislative and Public Affairs was put on administrative leave late Saturday, according to three sources directly familiar with the actions, and several of the agency’s communications staff were blocked from accessing internal systems to communicate with staff this week, another source said.

“No one feels safe to go anywhere near the Ronald Reagan building,” one USAID official told NBC News. “We just had Elon Musk call us a criminal organization. Our security chief was escorted out. We know we are being surveilled by DOGE.”

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