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John Barsa: About Me
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JOHN BARSA

Acting Deputy Assistant Administrator
2020-2021
@JohnBarsa

NEW USAID RELIGIOUS-FREEDOM ADVISER HAS HISTORY OF ANTI-ISLAM COMMENTS

May 27, 2020

This is just the latest reason officials and aid experts are concerned about the politicization and dysfunction of the country’s lead development agency under acting administrator John Barsa — a particularly dangerous dynamic in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic. The appointment is just the latest in a series of Trump administration moves that are raising concerns it is undermining USAID’s ability to fulfill its mission as the United States’ lead agency for helping the world’s poorest countries improve their economy, security and health.

USAID officials confirmed to me that Barsa chose Mark Kevin Lloyd to be USAID’s new “religious freedom adviser.” His first day was Tuesday. In 2016, the Associated Press reported that Lloyd (then the Trump campaign’s Virginia field director) had made and shared several Islamophobic posts on his personal social media accounts. On June 30 of that year, he shared a post on Facebook that called Islam “a barbaric cult,” the AP reported.

TRUMP AGENCY OFFICIAL PRIVATELY SAYS THERE IS ‘NO TRANSITION IN PLACE’ AFTER BIDEN’S VICTORY

John Barsa, the acting deputy administrator of USAID, privately told members of his team on Monday that, despite Biden’s victory, the transition of power has not started and will not begin until the General Services Administration signs off.

November 9, 2020

USAID'S MISSION IS TOO IMPORTANT TO POLITICIZE AND OBSTRUCT

November 15, 2020

...as John Barsa — the acting administrator who has succeeded in overstaying the 210-day legal limit on his initial appointment thanks only to the firing of Bonnie Glick, the agency’s second-highest official — announced that he too would not cooperate with the presidential transition.

ACTING HEAD OF USAID TESTS POSITIVE FOR COVID-19

November 25, 2020

Barsa, a Trump political appointee, has been regularly going to the office and holding meetings, including with officials from the White House, without a mask, a source familiar with the situation told CNN.

THE INSIDE STORY OF USAID'S TUMULTUOUS YEAR

January 6, 2021

Multiple people who spoke to Devex pointed to Barsa’s failure to reach out to staffers after the death of George Floyd in police custody and the subsequent racial reckoning that rippled across the world as an early turning point in how he was perceived inside the agency.

In June, nearly 2,400 USAID employees signed on to a letter addressed to Barsa, which outlined steps that could be taken to address issues of racial equality and discrimination.

For an agency that works on issues related to democracy, police accountability, and corruption — and which, according to one former official, traditionally has a more “open culture of talking about those things” as they pertain to its own culture — there was an expectation that USAID’s new leader would express some form of solidarity or recognition of unresolved challenges related to racism in America and beyond.

“His reluctance to really do anything along those lines eroded a lot of people’s confidence in his leadership and their willingness to give him a chance,” the first former official said.

1,100 STATE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES GOT VACCINATED. AT USAID, ZERO DID.

January 11, 2021

A loyal Trump political appointee, Barsa leaves behind a tenure marked by scandal and dysfunction. The White House’s Presidential Personnel Office (PPO) filled Barsa’s staff with hacks and MAGA extremists. An Islamophobe was appointed as USAID’s top religious freedom adviser. An anti-transgender activist was appointed deputy chief of staff. An anti-LBGTQ activist was appointed deputy White House liaison and then fired.

“The White House wanted people who were compliant in these positions. Barsa was really a puppet; he did the bidding of other people,” one senior GOP Senate aide said. “But he failed to defend the institution and its core values against the whims and fancies of people at the White House who don’t understand the role of development in foreign policy. That’s a failure of leadership at its core.”

John Barsa: CV
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