Pete Marocco, the Trump administration official in charge of dismantling the United States Agency for International Development, told the state department staff on Tuesday who is moving away from his role in Usaid and returning to his previous role in the State Department, according to an email obtained by ABC News.
“It has been an honor to help the Rubio Secretary in his leadership of USAID through some difficult stages to turn this company away from his abuses of the past,” Marocco said in email. “Now that Usaid is under control, responsible and stable, I will return to my position as Director of Foreign Assistance to return the value to the American people.”
The Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, appointed Marocco Usaid’s deputy administrator at the beginning of February, and Marocco, together with the efficiency department of Elon Musk’s government, directed the generalized effort to dismantle the agency by dismissed thousands of employees, revoke funds for more than 80% of their programs and eliminate their washington, DC, headquarters.
Marocco said in his email that he is going now that “Usaid is under control, responsible and stable,” however, many of the administration’s movements are currently being challenged or stuck in the courts, with a judge on Tuesday to decide that the dismantling of USAID was not constitutional.
A State Department official confirmed that Marocco would return to his role as Director of Foreign Assistance of the Agency, and that two politicians would assume the responsibilities of the Deputy Administrator.
These two people are Jeremy Lewin, who will serve as Coo of USAID and Deputy Policies and Programs Administrator, and Ken Jackson, who will be the Osaid CFO and Deputy Deputy Administration and Resources, according to Marocco’s email.
Lewin, 28, has been working with Dege in the State Department, helping in the effort to dismantle USAID, sources told ABC News. He graduated in 2022 of the Harvard Law Faculty, where he was co -author of multiple opinion articles with the renowned expert in Constitutional Law Laurence Tribe.
The USAID logo is seen in a machine that processes the recycled plastic in construction blocks in the Pasig Eco Hub, a project affected by the freezing of the Trump administration in foreign aid, on March 10, 2025, in Pasig, Metro Manila, Philippines.
Ezra Acayan/Getty Images
He was later hired as associate at the Office of the Muager Law Firm of Los Angeles, Towles & Olsen, according to a profile now missing on the company’s website.
Lewin seems not to have an apparent government experience, although his biography of Bio lawyers affirmed that “he had confidentially advised the world policy formulators, including the president of the United States and the main leaders of the Congress, the Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zekelsnkyy, and the main members of the G7 and the UN, in matters of international law and political.”
Trump administration critics say their efforts to annul the agency will paralyze US influence abroad and will have devastating effects for some of the most vulnerable populations in the world, which are based on funds from the United States for medical care, food and other basic needs.
In a statement shared by the State Department, Marocco said that “the problems at the level of crisis that had affected Usaid were very worse than we anticipated” and that “it has been an honor and a privilege to help restore responsibility and transparency in USAID.”
