Pete Marrocco, who worked with Elon Musk's team to oversee the gutting of foreign aid and the demolition of major U.S. aid agencies, has left the State Department, authorities said Monday.
The sudden departure is in the mid-August of the department's efforts to merge its aid group, the US International Development Agency, the US International Development Agency.
Marrocco was acting as the head of foreign aid for the department and would have overseen the remaining aid operations.
Marrocco is expected to do another job in the administration, US officials say.
The State Department did not provide official comment on Mr. Marrocco's departure. However, a statement from the department's press, which stems from “senior administrative authorities,” praised Marrocco for finding “a terrible abuse of taxpayer dollars” while in his tenure. The statement did not provide any examples of such abuse.
Critics for Marrocco said they plan to continue scrutiny of how he and Secretary of State Marco Rubio have destroyed foreign aid.
“Pete Marrocco's tenure has been a statement from Sen. Brian Schatz, a Hawaii Democrat, added in a statement, “Pete Marrocco's tenure has caused confusion in USAID, bringing reckless and illegal policies to the State Department, and dismantling long-standing US foreign policy,” adding that “millions of people around the world have taken away life-saving aid and saved the credibility of the United States.”
Marrocco visited the State Department's senior post office in late January to oversee foreign aid. After Rubio was appointed as USAID's proxy administrator on February 3, he was appointed by Marrocco as acting agent for the agency. Rubio said there is a need to publicly defend the reduction in foreign aid and curb the excessively vast use of aid.
Marrocco left his secondary position last month, and his duties were taken over by Jeremy Lewin, a 28-year-old employee of the Government Reduction Task Force, led by Musk, Trump's billionaire adviser. Marocco and Muskco's team entered USAID's headquarters in late January to break down the agency's technological infrastructure, which Musk later called it a social media “crime organisation.”
In recent weeks, some US officials have spoken about serious tensions between Marrocco and his senior colleagues.
However, Rubio approved all foreign aid cuts. He announced in early March that he and Musk's team had cut more than 83% of USAID's program, which was operating on 5,200 contracts. The majority of the agency's 10,000 employees have been fired.
The New York Times reported last month that Katt had destroyed the USAID operation to the extent that he struggled to convened Myanmar's response to a catastrophic earthquake, but China, Russia and other countries quickly sent teams. After a team of three USAID workers finally arrived in the country, they received an email saying they were fired.
The agreement was also ended, where Marrocco and other officials believed employees from some aid agencies would be preserved. In a round of cuts earlier this month, Marocco and other State Department officials have concluded all US humanitarian aid to Afghanistan and Yemen, where millions of people suffer from food shortages. Food aid contracts to Niger and the Democratic Republic of the Congo have also been cut, as well as other programs that support dozens of countries.
Marrocco also met with officials of the Hungarian authoritarian leader, Victor Orban, and has pledged to suspend all aid programs that have “intervened” in the country's internal affairs, according to a statement released by official Tristan Azbezi.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Marrocco had left the State Department on Sunday.
Marrocco worked easily for USAID in the first Trump administration and the State Department and the Pentagon. Aid agency employees submitted a 13-page memo in September 2020 accusing Marrocco of not managing it. “Intervention is urgently needed,” it said.
In 2018, while working as a political appointee at the State Department, Marrocco secretly met the nationalist Bosnian Serbian separatist leaders on the Balkans. The US ambassadors for Bosnia and Herzegovina replied Mr. Marrocco. That responsibilities were confirmed in the times by American officials.
The group of investigators publicly said that Marrocco, who was also a USAID appointee during the first Trump administration, and his wife Merritt Corrigan, were in photos of people who joined Capitol on January 6, 2021.
The State Department has not responded to public comments to various email requests sent since late January about Marrocco's activities since the first Trump administration.
