Trump's USAID Plans Bring 'Legal Challenges': Legal Expert

The President and Elon Musk's plan to move control of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to the State Department will bring legal challenges, an expert has warned.

Loyola Law School professor, Jessica Levinson, told Fox2 "When it comes to really big structural changes to USAID then you need to go to Congress."

USAID and the State Department has been contacted by Newsweek via email for comment.

Why It Matters

The United States' foundational federal government model is one of a balance of power. The Republican Party currently has control over all three branches, however, that does not mean that the President has automatic sovereign control over the country via executive orders.

The pauses to USAID carry immense consequences globally. Over the weekend soup kitchens in Khartoum, a hospital in Thailand, firewood storage in Ukraine, a program collecting intelligence on Al-Qaeda, and many other life saving organizations funded by the U.S. Government via USAID were shut down due to one potentially illegal Executive decision.

What To Know

Musk and Trump initially called to abolish USAID. They then turned the agency over to Secretary of State Marco Rubio who said parts of the agency will continue to run under the watch of Pete Marocco, the State Department's director of foreign assistance. Marocco was allegedly at the January 6 riot, which he has denied, and he and his wife have not been charged in connection with the disturbance.

On Fox2, Levinson, asked about this latest move from the President and Musk: "Can the President, via executive order, either abolish USAID or fold it into the State Department? And that raises some really serious questions about the reach of executive authority."

Levinson added: "[There is a] Clinton-era law that basically says when it comes to really big structural changes to USAID then you need to go to Congress, and you can't do it alone, Mr President."

Senator Chuck Schumer also said the suspension of the aid group is "illegal."

Schumer has been contacted via email for comment.

USAID is an independent agency which is a significant funder in terms of monetary compensation and physical workers to not only aid sites, but also counterterrorism work, across the world.

Secretary Rubio has said the agency will continue to provide "lifesaving humanitarian assistance," following its chaotic shut down over the weekend.

However, several agency workers are still fired, workers abroad have been left locked out of their government accounts and left stranded at their posts, tuberculosis patients at a USAID run hospital were told to leave, and a bar on 'diversity' hiring which Rubio has said he will keep in place will remove 1,700 Afghan women, who are forbidden from working by the Taliban, from their USAID posts, as reported by The New York Times.

Additionally, scholarship students from Egypt who receive USAID funding for university were told to leave their dorms, and independent news agencies in Iran who work to spread information about their regime had to fire their freelancers because of the funding freeze.

Elon Musk, who advises the President, expressed on X (formerly Twitter) that he wants to get rid of the agency due to his prerogative for efficiency under his, currently unconfirmed, role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

He said the agency, which provides the only daily meal to many residents of war-torn Khartoum, is a "ball of worms."

Workers for USAID told the NYT, that in reality an end to the agency's funding could kill hundreds of thousands of people.

Elon Musk's Status Raises Questions

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is an unelected member of the Trump team, who leads an agency which was granted its status via another executive order and not via Congressional approval.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent signed off on allowing Musk's team of DOGE engineers to access Treasury data and trawl them for 'government waste.' The Treasury also contains sensitive information on citizens' private data which Musk now also has access to.

Levinson said "we've never been here before" when it comes to a private citizen with access to this amount of information. One thing we need to look at is consent," she told Fox2 host Jana Katsuyama.

She said that although "we know that the Treasury Department has essentially said to Elon Musk 'come on in, and look at our payment system,' Levinson questioned whether Musk has the security clearance to look at sensitive or classified documents within the department.

She added that Musk is also a government contractor via SpaceX, raising more questions about a conflict of interest.

What People Are Saying

Congressman Jamie Raskin said in a statement: "Elon Musk, you may have illegally seized power over the financial payment systems of the United States Department of Treasury, but you don't control the money of the American people. The United States Congress does that—under Article I of the Constitution. And just like the president, who was elected to something, cannot impound the money of the people, we don't have a fourth branch of government called Elon Musk. And that's going to become real clear."

Atif Mukhtar of the Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan told the NYT: "It was our fault to rely so heavily on one donor, but this has really shocked us. You can't take food off people who are starving. That's just insane."

Marco Rubio speaking to the press in El Salvador: "There are things that USAID, that we do through USAID, that we should continue to do, and we will continue to do. This is not about ending the programs that USAID does, per se."

What Happens Next

USAID workers spoke with the NYT warning that if the Trump administration fully freezes the President Emergency Plan for AIDS relief, a plan founded by Republican George W. Bush, then hundreds of thousands of people will die.

This relief plan was already frozen over the weekend, preventing many people from accessing their much-needed HIV/AIDS medication. It has now been unfrozen, but the future of the program is now unclear, especially with Musk calling for the total demolition of USAID programs.

Update: 02/04/25 This article was updated to include a trust meter.