First on CNN: Republican and Democratic former USAID leaders speak out against Trump’s attempts to dismantle agency

(CNN) — Five former leaders of the US Agency for International Development from across Republican and Democratic administrations have spoken out against the Trump administration’s attempts to dismantle the humanitarian agency and called on Congress “to swiftly protect the Agency’s statutory role.”

In a Wednesday statement obtained first by CNN, the five former administrators said that to “weaken and even destroy the Agency is to the benefit of neither political party and the detriment of all Americans.” They defended the USAID workforce, which has come under vicious rhetorical attack by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

“While we don’t agree on all issues, we wholeheartedly agree that USAID and America’s foreign assistance programs are vital to our interests, that the career men and women of USAID have served each of us well, and that it is the duty of the Administration and Congress to swiftly protect the Agency’s statutory role,” wrote Samantha Power, Gayle Smith, Andrew Natsios, J. Brian Atwood and Peter McPherson.

They served under the Biden, Obama, George W. Bush, Clinton, and Reagan administrations, respectively.

“Failure to maintain the global engagement that foreign aid enables, to honor the men and women of our civilian service as we do those in the military, or weaken and even destroy the Agency is to the benefit of neither political party and the detriment of all Americans,” they wrote.

The Trump administration has taken a series of steps to dismantle the agency – a move that the Congressional Research Service says is in violation of the law.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has been named acting administrator of the agency.

“USAID may move, reorganize, and integrate certain missions, bureaus, and offices into the Department of State, and the remainder of the Agency may be abolished consistent with applicable law,” he told lawmakers earlier this week.

For days, the agency had put thousands contractors, including those who function as diplomats abroad, on leave or locked them out of critical agency systems. On Tuesday evening, officials who are direct-hires of the US government began receiving leave notice. Later that night, the agency informed its workforce that “all USAID direct hire personnel,” with a few exceptions, “will be placed on administrative leave globally” on Friday at 11:59pm.

The notice advised that USAID was “preparing a plan” to “arrange and pay for return travel to the United States within 30 days” for personnel posted abroad and provide for “the termination” of contractors who “are not determined to be essential.”

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