USAID staff warned — talk to the press, risk being fired

Mark Kevin Lloyd is back at the U.S. Agency for International Development and he’s warning staff members that talking to the press could get them sacked. Staff are “reminded that unauthorized engagement externally with the press or others is subject to discipline, including dismissal,” he wrote in a Feb. 13 memo that Devex obtained. The memo noted that Lloyd is “performing the duties” of assistant administrator for the agency’s Bureau of Global Health. Under former President Joe Biden’s administration, this role was held by Dr. Atul Gawande. In his memo, Lloyd also wrote there’s a “false narrative in the press” about the lifesaving humanitarian assistance included under the U.S. State Department’s waiver system, saying it has “continued uninterrupted and was never paused.” In the wake of the Trump administration’s freeze on USAID’s global programming, certain lifesaving programming has been included under waivers, which excludes this programming from the global freeze. For example, there is a waiver for “urgent life-saving HIV treatment services” under the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. Lloyd’s memo outlined the circumstances under which global health activities beyond PEPFAR are included by waivers, which includes specific activities for fighting tuberculosis, malaria, acute risks of maternal and child mortality, severe acute malnutrition, and other life-threatening diseases and health conditions. But USAID’s payment system — called Phoenix — has been down, making it impossible in many cases for this work to move forward. For example, while one of USAID’s partner organizations in Kenya has its HIV work included in the PEPFAR waiver, the organization hasn’t received cash advances from the agency, and so they’ve had “no funds to operate.” Additionally, USAID staffers and partner organizations haven’t received clear communication about which awards are exempt from the stop-work order and which are not. But it’s not just the press reporting on the flaws in the waiver system. On the same day Lloyd’s memo went out, Democratic Congressman Joaquin Castro said that “the Phoenix system is not operating. Unless the Phoenix system can operate, they can’t issue checks. No one is getting funded even though the waiver has been granted.” Human Rights Watch echoed this last week, noting that the State Department “waivers on suspended foreign assistance worldwide have not resulted in the resumption of many vital programs protecting and promoting human rights.” “Since the January 20 order, implementing partners and State Department and USAID officials in embassies, consulates, and missions worldwide have received conflicting and confusing information about how to interpret restrictions and what permissions were needed to restart vital programs,” the organization wrote. This is Lloyd’s second time serving at USAID. He was appointed in 2020, during the first Trump administration, as USAID religious freedom adviser. At the time, seven Democratic members of Congress wrote to then-USAID Acting Administrator John Barsa denouncing the appointment. They wrote he “demonstrated a historical pattern of prejudice against the Islamic faith and the Muslim population.” This included calling Islam a “barbaric cult” — which USAID said was in reference to “radical Islam.” They also wrote that he asserted there’s a link between former U.S. President Barack Obama and the Muslim Brotherhood, and Lloyd posted articles that endorsed the Chinese government’s suppression of the Uyghur Muslim minority. Lloyd’s recent social media posts have focused on criticisms of abortion and opposition to LGBTQ+ rights, as well as support for increasing deportations of “illegal aliens.” There are also posts comparing U.S. Democrats to Nazis and referring to former Vice President Kamala Harris as a parasite. And despite Lloyd sending the hush order on USAID staff members last week, he’d posted a meme with quotes from billionaire Elon Musk promoting free speech last September: “They don’t ban hate speech, they ban speech they hate,” and last August, Lloyd posted a meme with a paraphrased quote from American writer Laurie Halse Anderson: “Censorship is the child of fear, the father of ignorance and the weapon of tyrants.” Last July he posted a meme that read: “If you repeat a lie often enough, it becomes <strike>t̶r̶u̶t̶h̶</strike> journalism.” CNN reported that in 2010 Lloyd called for an armed revolution if the Tea Party didn’t win at the ballot box. “If it isn’t the ballot, at some point, it will be a bullet,” he said. USAID and Lloyd had not responded to Devex’s requests for comment at time of publication.