Investigation Says Trump Official Fired Thousands Without Completing Employment Paperwork, Then Announces Departure

Jeremy Lewin, a 29-year-old Trump administration official who played a prominent role in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), announced his departure from the State Department on Tuesday, October 27.

His resignation followed a bombshell WIRED investigative report alleging he lacked the required formal paperwork and security database records when he ordered sweeping staff cuts.

According to internal agency emails WIRED obtained, Secretary of State Marco Rubio granted Lewin significant administrative authority over USAID on March 18, 2025. However, severe bureaucratic gaps quickly emerged.

Lewin told WIRED that before Rubio granted him the authority, he was “both detailed and dual appointed to work at USAID by Secretary Rubio according to well-established authorities and with the advice of State Department and White House counsel.”

Human resources executives reported that as of March 26, 2025, Lewin had neither submitted mandatory federal background screening forms nor accepted a temporary employment offer.

Just two days later, on March 26, he signed the notice terminating USAID's remaining personnel. Because the agency's security office had no record of him in its database, it could not issue him an official employee identification badge.

“He was the equivalent of an administrative ghost,” a USAID human resources executive told WIRED.

“I think this creates a huge accountability problem if you have these actors who are making really consequential life-or-death decisions who didn't go through any standard confirmation process,” Don Moynihan, a public policy professor at the University of Michigan, told WIRED, adding, “or in this case didn't even complete their paperwork to become a formal employee.”

Lewin disputed the investigation's implications, asserting that he maintained continuous federal employment and active security clearances through separate arrangements at the State Department.

“I was a regular government employee with a valid security clearance held by the State Department during this entire period. USAID HR was confused about this paperwork for a period of days, but this issue was cleared up once they were made aware of the dual appointment and my State Department position,” he told WIRED.

Lewin’s story leaves experts skeptical.

David A. Super, a professor of law and economics at Georgetown University, told the magazine this was more than an administrative error.

“You can’t just walk in the door of a federal agency and become an employee,” he said.

Before leaving, Lewin was the youngest person — under 30 — to serve as the State Department's Director of Policy Planning, a position he took over in August 2025.

He originally joined the administration as a staffer in Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), where he led a failed initiative to shut down USAID over allegations of fraud, waste, and abuse.

After USAID's dissolution, he managed the restructuring and absorption of select humanitarian programs under the State Department. In his policy planning role, he focused tightly on aggressive regional strategies involving Cuba and Venezuela.

Lewin was previously slated for a role on the White House National Security Council in July 2025, but the appointment stalled following public political infighting and online criticism from conservative activists.