Fired USAID official's 'alarming' unsent memo leaks

Nicholas Enrich, the acting assistant administrator for global health at USAID, was placed on administrative leave Sunday after he sent out two memos criticizing the Trump administration for putting some of the world's most vulnerable people at risk of disease, famine, and natural disasters.

According to The Bulwark's Sam Stein, one memo "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.'"

But it was a third, unsent memo, that really caught Stein's attention. He described it as "more alarming than the other two."

The shocking projections cited in the unfinished memo included nearly 17 million pregnant women who "would not be able to reach life-saving services if USAID programs were permanently halted, and more than 11 million newborns would not get critical postnatal care. An estimated 1 million children would not be treated annually for severe acute malnutrition."

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Stein continued, "The acting assistant administrator described a geopolitical and economic catastrophe entirely of our own making. In the unfinished memo, he notes that 'preventable diseases' would surge, and that the 'consequences will extend beyond borders, increasing the risk of infections reaching the U.S.'"

These infections could come from devastating diseases like Ebola and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, Enrich wrote in the memo.

Stein wrote, "The source who passed along the memo suggested that Enrich wrote it knowing that he was, more or less, digging the grave for his career. It’s not as polished as the other two, reflecting the fact that he was clearly still crafting it before he was put on leave."

After Elon Musk identified USAID for dismantling as part of his Department of Government Efficiency, President Donald Trump said the agency was run "by a bunch of radical lunatics, and we’re getting them out."

Read The Bulwark article here.