(Ken Silva, Headline USA) The New York Times has interviewed 30 former employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development, reporting Monday that they’re suffering from “mental trauma” due to being fired last year.
The Times report comes about a year after USAID was closed as part of the Trump administration’s short-lived cost-cutting measures, which were spearheaded by billionaire Elon Musk and his Department of Government Efficiency. By March 2025, 83 percent of the agency’s foreign aid had been canceled. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at the time that roughly 5,200 contracts had also been canceled because they did not serve—“and in some cases even harmed”—U.S. national security interests.
According to the Times article, many of the fired employees aren’t doing too well.
“Unlike in early 2025, when many who lost jobs thought they might be reinstated and declined to speak on the record for fear of antagonizing Trump officials, this time almost all gave their names and spoke emotionally and at length,” the Times reported.
“Many said they were still dealing with mental trauma and a loss of confidence in their professional abilities after brutal job hunts.”
Among the employees fired was a gay immigrant.
“I’m a queer, brown immigrant,” Adrian Mathura, 55, a Navy veteran and a former senior U.S.A.I.D. adviser in global health, told the Times. “I got to do all of this incredible stuff in my life and my career, and I spent all of my adult life touting how great the city on the hill was. I never even once imagined I would be so betrayed by my government.”
The Times also profiled a "queer, brown immigrant" who was axed from USAID
“I got to do all of this incredible stuff in my life and my career…I never even once imagined I would be so betrayed by my government.” https://t.co/zO1IW1qRgx pic.twitter.com/d3wWpRknW7
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) April 23, 2026
As Headline USA has covered, USAID was rife with fraud and wasteful spending during its tenure.
In February 2025, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called out USAID for spending $1.5 million to “advance DEI in Serbia’s workplaces;” $70,000 for a production of a “DEI musical in Ireland;” $47,000 for a “transgender opera” in Colombia; and $32,000 for a “transgender comic book” in Peru.
About three months later, the founder of a government contracting firm pled guilty to bribing a USAID officer to receive some $500 million in contracts. The USAID officer he bribed pled guilty, too. They have yet to be sentenced.
Also last May, Stephen Paul Edmund Sutton, 53, a United Kingdom citizen, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to time served for his participation in a USAID fraud scheme. In that case, Sutton and his co-defendant, Atif Gillani, created two shell companies, obtained multiple purchase orders for forklift and crane services, and funneled that money to themselves.
More recently, three major media outlets all reported that USAID funds were diverted to the El Salvadoran gang, La Mara Salvatrucha, more commonly known as MS-13.
ProPublica first reported the bombshell revelation in early June, citing sources who alleged that El Salvador President Nayib Bukele struck a secret pact with MS-13—agreeing to provide the gang with money and power in exchange for votes and reduced homicide rates. Some of that money allegedly came from USAID.
🚨There are numerous credible reports that USAID money was siphoned to MS-13. Why have Trump officials been silent about this? Likely because the USAID money was siphoned by El Salvador's Bukele administration, which has a deal with the US to take deported criminals. pic.twitter.com/Ha09VmW4p1
— Ken Silva (@JD_Cashless) October 20, 2025
ProPublica’s scoop was followed up later in June by the New York Times, which reported similar facts.
And last October, the Washington Post reported that the Trump administration has even agreed to send back confidential informants from MS-13, who’ve provided the Justice Department with information about the gang’s links to Bukele. Like the Times and ProPublica, the Post also reported that USAID money was suspected of having gone to MS-13.
“The deal would give Bukele possession of individuals who threatened to expose the alleged deals his government made with MS-13 to help achieve El Salvador’s historic drop in violence,” the Post reported, citing anonymous officials.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
