Reporter obtains 'alarming' third memo from USAID official put on leave for revealing foreign aid cuts
People hold placards, as the USAID building sits closed to employees after a memo was issued advising agency personnel to work remotely, in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 3, 2025. REUTERS/Kent Nishimura/File Photo
An executive at USAID, the foreign aid agency in the process of being dismantled, was placed on administrative leave after sending memos criticizing the Trump administration’s cuts, Sam Stein writes Monday at the Bulwark. Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID, was showing the consequences of the Trump administration was not honoring its promise to exclude life saving foreign aid.
“Enrich had authored two memos, both dated February 28, 2025,” Stein writes. “One noted the dramatic staff reductions that had taken place at the Bureau for Global Health, whose workforce had gone from 783 ‘encumbered’ positions to 69 personnel ‘that received Essential Personnel Designations, of which 15 received RIF letters.’ In the other, Enrich identified ‘72 activities across 31 awards’ that had been approved for waivers by Secretary of State Marco Rubio but for which no payments had been released. He said the death toll from this was ‘not known.’”
In a third unfinished memo, which Stein called, "more alarming than the other two," Enrich outlined consequences of a stop to $7.7 billion in global health aid. This could lead to “12.5–17.9 million cases of malaria with an additional 71,000–166,000 deaths annually, a 28 to 32 percent increase in tuberculosis globally, an additional 200,000 paralytic polio cases a year, and potentially more than 28,000 cases of Ebola, Marburg, or related diseases.” In addition, nearly 17 million pregnant women would lose out on lifesaving programs.
READ MORE: 'Strong eugenic connotation': Here’s the hateful slur the alt-right is bringing back
He noted that these cuts could affect global trade. They could also cause job losses for American farmers providing food to send overseas. Finally, he pointed out that risk of preventable diseases would reach the U.S.
Ending these programs, he said, could pose risks for national security. “Weakened disease surveillance doesn’t only jeopardize natural outbreak detection — it also creates openings for malicious actors,” Enrich wrote. “Global health monitoring systems serve as the ‘smoke alarm’ for unusual disease patterns that could signal a bioterrorism event. If those alarms are switched off or muted due to lack of funding, a deliberate release of a pathogen could spread for weeks under the guise of a normal outbreak.”
Enrich was aware that the memos would have repercussions for his own career. “He knew sending those would result in discipline and the end of his career (at USAID), but also sending those ‘for the record’ ensured that the world had a light on what was really going on,” a source told the Bulwark.
“How much good will come of this is the larger question,” Stein writes. “It’s fair to be skeptical. That said, there is some precedent for people using public pressure to compel DOGE and Trump to reverse their decisions to shutter critical programs. Over the weekend, Elon Musk took to Twitter to try and shame folks for insisting that 400,000 boxes of USAID-branded nutrient-rich, peanut-based paste were languishing in a warehouse because of the aid pause. But he also pledged to look into it. And then he reported back that the payments for those shipments had been restored — which, by late Sunday night, they had been.”
READ MORE: Alarm sounded as Trump’s recent moves threaten to upend the Constitution
