In a court filing on Wednesday, Trump administration attorneys argued that a USAID directive to destroy classified documents was “seriously misapprehended” and insisted that all records were handled appropriately, without violating federal laws governing the preservation of government documents. The American Federation of Government Employees, suing the administration over workforce cuts, sought a federal judge’s intervention to prevent the destruction of potentially relevant documents. The directive, issued by a senior USAID official, instructed staff to shred documents first and use burn bags as needed. Justice Department attorneys stated that trained USAID staff removed classified documents to clear space for a new tenant, emphasizing that the documents in question were duplicates or derivatives not essential for USAID to retain. The Trump administration clarified that the USAID office space is being decommissioned for a new tenant, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and the classified documents were being removed to accommodate this transition. Erica Carr, the USAID official issuing the directive, declared that outdated classified documents were being removed by employees with appropriate clearances and that most of these documents were still in storage pending the judge’s decision on their fate.
