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Wired: USAID HR had no record of Lewin as he led 2025 cuts
Wired reported Tuesday that Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old DOGE affiliate, led USAID cuts in March 2025 while agency emails showed he had not completed onboarding paperwork.
- New headline Was: “A 28-Year-Old DOGE Operative Gutted USAID. HR Had No Record of Him Working There”
- Our desk filed its story
- wired.com is now reporting this
Wired reported Tuesday that Jeremy Lewin, then 28, received delegated authority over the U.S. Agency for International Development on March 18, 2025, while internal emails the magazine reviewed showed agency human resources had not completed standard onboarding for him1.
According to Wired, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, acting as USAID administrator, delegated the powers of deputy administrator for policy and programming and chief operating officer to Lewin, a Harvard Law graduate, former investment banker and affiliate of the Department of Government Efficiency1.
Wired said emails from March 18 to April 4, 2025, showed Lewin began canceling aid programs and signed off on terminating thousands of USAID employees without having signed paperwork typically required to begin work at the agency1.
The magazine reported that on March 20, White House liaison Adam Korzeniewski asked HR to start onboarding Lewin as a senior adviser performing deputy-administrator duties; a temporary job offer followed, but by March 26 Lewin had not accepted it or filed form OF-306, which federal agencies use before a final appointment1.
More than a week after the March 18 delegation, a USAID official told Korzeniewski that security could not issue Lewin an ID card because its database had no record of him as an employee, Wired reported1.
Lewin, now director of policy planning at the State Department, told Wired he was “a regular government employee with a valid security clearance held by the State Department during this entire period”1.
He also told the magazine he had been detailed and dual-appointed to USAID by Rubio with advice from State Department and White House counsel, and that HR confusion lasted days until staff knew of the dual appointment1.
A White House official told Wired that Lewin submitted required employment and clearance paperwork; Lewin provided two March 18, 2025, documents, including a Rubio-signed appointment and compensation waiver citing 22 U.S.C. § 2385(b) and an appointment affidavit, Wired said1.
Wired reported a top HR executive said no one in that office saw delegation documents until late April 2025; Lewin said in a court declaration in J. Doe 4 v. U.S. DOGE Service that he began at USAID on Jan. 28, 2025, and that he was never an employee of Elon Musk or the U.S. DOGE Service1.
Law professors quoted by Wired differed: Brian Feinstein of Wharton said the 22 U.S.C. § 2385(b) appointment appeared consistent with USAID personnel law, while David Super of Georgetown and Nina Mendelson of the University of Michigan questioned whether Lewin was a subordinate official who could lawfully receive Senate-confirmed powers under vacancies rules1.
Wired said a Maryland court issued a preliminary injunction on March 18, 2025, limiting special government employees at USAID, the same day Rubio delegated powers to Lewin; the Fourth Circuit later stayed the injunction, and Lewin signed a letter on March 28 terminating remaining USAID staff, according to the magazine1.
Attorney Kevin Byrnes, representing more than 170 current and former USAID staff in a separate suit, told Wired that incomplete onboarding could raise further questions about authority and possible personal liability; what a court will decide remains unknown1.
