Security Official at Aid Agency Put on Leave After Denying Access to Musk Team

The top security official at the U.S.Agency for International Development was put on administrative leave on Saturday night after refusing to give representatives of Elon Musk access to internal systems, according to three U.S.

officials with knowledge of the matter.John Voorhees, U.S.A.I.D.’s director of security, is the latest senior official at the agency to be put on administrative leave.Last week, Trump administration appointees suspended about 60 senior officials and fired hundreds of contractors.

There has been talk among current and former agency employees and lawmakers that the agency could be subsumed within the State Department in a drastically reduced form.The deputy security official working under Mr.Voorhees was also put on leave, one U.S.

official said.U.S.A.I.D., which is funded by Congress and takes some guidance from the State Department, has otherwise operated independently.Mr.

Voorhees could not immediately be reached for comment.“USAID is a criminal organization,” Mr.Musk wrote on Sunday in a social media post that many aid workers saw as confirmation the agency would soon be absorbed into the State Department and that some viewed as a potential threat to their personal safety.

“Time for it to die.”U.S.A.I.D., which spent about $38.1 billion on health services, disaster relief, anti-poverty efforts and other foreign assistance programs in fiscal year 2023, makes up less than 1 percent of the federal budget.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe....