Ranking Member Shaheen, Booker, and Foreign Relations Committee Democrats to Secretary Rubio: Unauthorized Access of USAID and Dismissal of Personnel Compromises our National Security

WASHINGTON — Today, U.S. Senators Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Brian Schatz (D-HI), Chris Coons (D-DE), Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV), members of SFRC, sent a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio demanding an explanation of recent developments at the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), including reports that individuals who identified themselves as working for the "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) accessed USAID’s main headquarters, American citizens’ data and classified spaces.

“Congress established the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) as an independent agency, separate from the Department of State, to ensure that we can deploy development expertise and U.S. foreign assistance quickly, particularly in times of crisis, to meet our national security goals,” wrote the lawmakers. “For this reason, any effort to merge or fold USAID into the Department of State should be, and by law must be, previewed, discussed, and approved by Congress.”

“We received reports that individuals who identified themselves as working for the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’ (DOGE) accessed USAID’s main headquarters, including classified spaces,” continued the lawmakers. “The potential access of sensitive, even classified, files which may include the personally identifiable information (PII) of Americans working with USAID, and this incident as a whole raises deep concerns about the protection and safeguarding of matters related to U.S. national security.”

“We request an immediate update about the access of USAID’s headquarters, including whether the individuals who accessed the headquarters were authorized to be there and by whom, whether all individuals who accessed classified spaces have active security clearances at the appropriate level, what they were seeking to access, if any PII of American citizens was breached, and whether any review is underway regarding potential unauthorized access to sensitive personnel information and classified materials,” concluded the lawmakers.

The full letter is available here.