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Trump’s State Department was supposed to keep sensitive information about foreign grants private, despite Musk’s meddling. It all leaked

Donald Trump’s State Department was going to keep sensitive information about foreign grants private, despite Musk’s meddling. It all leaked.

The leak, which sent a variety of international groups and nonprofits scrambling to assess the damage and protect workers operating under repressive regimes, came after the organizations had pressed the Trump administration to keep the sensitive information private and received some assurances it would remain secret. The State Department, led by Marco Rubio, informed a variety of international nonprofits and longtime implementing partner organizations last week that upcoming payments of their congressionally approved grant funds came with some conditions that the Trump administration wanted to clarify. From Wednesday and well into Thursday, this led to a mad dash among these different groups to work up damage assessments on what had just happened; frantically reach out to an array of staffers and local activists to warn them and to confirm that they were safe and OK; and to game out what they were all prepared to do in worst case scenarios, according to the sources familiar with the situation and the written communications and internal memos reviewed by Rolling Stone.

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