This is unreal. An executive director of USAID instructed her staff via email to shred all their documents today at their former DC headquarters.

Here’s more from taxpayer-funded Politico:

A senior official at USAID instructed the agency’s remaining staff to convene at the agency’s now-former headquarters in Washington on Tuesday for an “all day” group effort to destroy documents stored there, many of which contain sensitive information.

The materials earmarked for destruction include contents of the agency’s “classified safes and personnel documents” at the Ronald Reagan Building, said an email sent by USAID’s acting executive director, Erica Carr, and obtained by POLITICO.

“Shred as many documents first, and reserve the burn bags for when the shredder becomes unavailable or needs a break,” the email said. Carr instructed staff to label the burn bags with the words “SECRET” and “USAID/B/IO/” (agency shorthand for “bureau or independent office”) in dark Sharpie.

The email didn’t provide any reason for the document destruction. The building is being emptied out after mass layoffs, which may have disrupted routine document destruction timetables. Customs and Border Protection is planning to move into the USAID facility, having rented 390,000 square feet of office space in the building last month.

The effort also underscores the tumultuous way in which the Trump administration is dismantling an agency that once managed a $40 billion annual budget and had more than 10,000 staff around the world.

The State Department didn’t respond to a request for comment on the document purge.

A former USAID staffer confirmed the veracity of the email and described the destruction of agency documents as unprecedented.

“I’ve never seen something like this — en masse. Everyone with a safe is supposed to keep it up to date and destroy documents when they no longer need to be stored. Sometimes security will check your safe and tell you if you have to clean out old material,” said the former staffer, who was granted anonymity due to fear of possible reprisals by the Trump administration.

I know this isn’t a criminal investigation but shredding all these documents, to keep President Trump from finding out about whatever they’ve been up to, does sound criminal to me and I hope they throw this director in jail.

According to this X user, it is unlawful to shred these documents: