The RecordExhibit 11
Dismantling USAID, an agency Congress created
Mixed rulings means: Courts have ruled both ways on parts of it.
The administration cancelled about 83% of USAID's programs, locking staff out of their systems and firing many by mass email.
What happened
Musk said the agency had been put through the woodchipper. A study in The Lancet projected that if the cuts stick, more than 14 million additional people could die by 2030, about 4.5 million of them children under five.
Where it stands
On March 18, 2025, U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang in Maryland ruled that the dismantling likely violated the Constitution, found that the agency had been effectively eliminated, and blocked Musk's team from further cuts. Ten days later, on March 28, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted that order, at least for now. It found the evidence did not show Musk was the one giving the orders, since the cuts were approved by government officials, and suggested a separation-of-powers challenge should be aimed at the administration itself. The employees' lawsuit continues before Judge Chuang, who refused to dismiss it. In February 2026 he ordered Musk and two former USAID officials, Peter Marocco and Jeremy Lewin, to answer questions under oath, saying there was no alternative because the employees had been unable to get the information from documents or lower-ranking officials. On March 4, 2026, a 4th Circuit panel blocked those depositions for now, 2 to 1. The majority wrote that questioning high-ranking officials is a last resort and that the judge was wrong to find there were no alternatives. The death figures are projections (the authors' range runs from about 8 to 19 million), not counts.
The administration's side
The administration called it a crackdown on wasteful spending and said the roughly 1,000 surviving programs would be run more effectively by the State Department.
Sources
Permanent link: https://unredactedrecord.com/e/usaid/