USAID worker blames 'stress and strain' of Trump's aid freeze for wife's pregnancy scare
A U.S. foreign service officer deployed overseas blamed President Donald Trump administration's "cruel and harmful shutdown" of USAID for threatening the lives of his pregnant wife and unborn child, according to court documents filed Monday night.
Identified in an affidavit only as Terry Doe, the foreign service officer explained in vivid detail how the emotional strain, financial burden and logistical hurdles brought on by the administration's "rushed, haphazard" attempt to dismantle the aid agency left him and his wife in a "life-threatening emergency."
"My wife is 31 weeks pregnant, after years of infertility and $50,000 of personal investment in countless fertility treatments," Doe explained. "Because of the stress and strain of the constant onslaught by my employer in recent weeks, my wife has repeatedly been in the hospital with a life-threatening condition and stress-related complications."
ABC News has reached out to the Trump administration for comment.
After a local physician and the embassy's medical unit advised her to be medically evacuated out of the country, Doe continued, the State Department twice refused Doe's request, along "with a message stating that 'there is no USAID funding for medivacs.'"
Only when an unidentified U.S. senator intervened on Doe's behalf was he able to secure approval for a medical evacuation -- but by then, Doe wrote, "my wife began hemorrhaging and had to be admitted to the hospital at our overseas post," where she remains as of Monday.
"The stress on all USAID families since January 20th contributed to her deteriorating medical condition," Doe asserted. "Now I'm afraid for her and my baby's health because of this rushed, haphazard and cruel push to shut down the agency. This didn't have to happen."
In a separate affidavit filed Monday, Randall Chester, the vice president of a union that represents thousands of foreign service officers, pushed back on several claims made by Peter Marocco, the acting deputy director of USAID and a key figure in the agency's deterioration.
Chester disputed Marocco's characterization of the evacuation of USAID employees from the Congo as a "success," instead claiming that the agency "completely failed to provide the DRC evacuees with the logistical and financial support that they would normally be due under standard evacuation processes."
Chester also wrote that USAID's payment system, called Phoenix, remains "inoperable," and that some foreign service officers who were forced to evacuate the Congo "reported that they are carrying $10,000s of debt due to the Agency not paying vouchers" for their travel, hotels, and meals during the evacuation.
