Elon Musk's New USAID Stooge Once Threatened to Gut a Girl

Jeremy Lewin, the newly appointed head of the remaining shreds of USAID, has a history of violent outbursts and making racist remarks, according to an exclusive report from Rolling Stone.
Before Lewin was installed as the agency's chief operating officer earlier this month, he was DOGE's team lead overseeing the gutting of USAID. Six people told Rolling Stone that when Lewin attended Buckingham Browne & Nichols School, a prestigious high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he expressed explicitly racist views.
'I have a vivid memory of him telling me that he believed non-white people were inherently of 'lower value' than white people,' said one former acquaintance who spoke with Rolling Stone. That person described Lewin as 'blatantly racist.'
Others who knew him then said that he espoused ideas such as the 'great replacement theory' and claimed that white people were biologically more intelligent than people of other races.
One former acquaintance told Rolling Stone that news of Lewin's appointment gave them 'chills.'
'I thought he had no empathy. He was fashy, misogynistic, [and] really believed Western civilization was superior. I can see him enjoying taking away humanitarian programs in Africa. It's frightening. It's like letting Hannibal Lecter mind kids or something,' they told the magazine.
In school, Lewin also had a penchant for violent outbursts, and allegedly threw things at other students. Outside of school he was violent too. One girl, who was a minor at the time, told police that she feared for her life after Lewin threatened her with a knife at a party, asking why 'he shouldn't gut [her] and cut [her] right now,' according to police reports.
The 18-year-old Lewin had a hearing scheduled on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon, but it was ultimately canceled for unknown reasons, according to Rolling Stone.
Lewin went on to attend Dartmouth University and Harvard Law School, before clerking for Judge Judith Rogers, a progressive who was the first Black woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
His new position at USAID was announced as U.S. District Judge Theodore D. Chuang barred DOGE from taking any actions at the agency without permission of a USAID official, ruling that DOGE's efforts to shutter the agency likely violated the U.S. Constitution. Lewin's appointment was likely an effort to skirt the order.
After the government asked the judge to exempt Lewin from the order, the judge amended his order to specifically include Lewin. Chuang said his order purposefully included 'all individuals with a past or present affiliation' with DOGE to 'address the most likely perpetrators of constitutional violations.'
'Excluding Lewin from this class would undermine these purposes,' Chuang wrote in his order.
Still, Lewin sent out a memo Friday announcing that the USAID would terminate the vast majority of its employees on either July 1 or September 2, likely violating Chuang's direct order.

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Yahoo

27 minutes ago

• Yahoo

British-Iranians struggling to contact friends and family who fear punishment by Tehran regime

With Iran now in the midst of a near-total internet blackout, communication is dire - but we've managed to piece together a picture of a country where there is fear and panic, but where activists say the ruling regime is still in control. We meet British-Iranians Amir Javadzadeh and Attieh Fard in the UK - struggling to get through to their friends and family in Iran. Hour by hour, it's getting harder and harder. Amir finally makes contact with a friend in the eastern city of Mashhad. We are calling the friend "Ali" to protect his identity. Ali paints a worrying picture of people struggling to get hold of basics like bread and fuel. Middle East latest: Trump says he 'may or may not' strike Iran He later sends us a video he's taken of a huge fuel queue in the city. "My wife is in hospital and I have to go there all the time and I don't have any fuel or medicine for her. "Really it's a difficult time for us, and we don't have gasoline, we have problems preparing food. All the people have fear,' he adds. Not only is there a shortage of fuel - but some people who have fled the capital Tehran are coming to Mashhad, he adds. 'I'm really angry… we're actually, you know, we are stuck in the middle of a war between our government and the Israelis,' Ali said. People in Iran are terrified to speak to Western media - afraid of being punished by the Iranian regime. Although some have been prepared to share videos with us anonymously, like the one below, that they've filmed of the bombing in Tehran. Attieh Fard shared with us a message exchange between her and one of her relatives, one says: 'Everyone has worries and stress….They (the Israelis) won't stop until they hit the target.' Despite the dangers, one member of a group of anti-regime activists agreed to speak to us from the capital Tehran - we have changed his name to "Sam", to hide his identity. Read more: With America threatening to bomb Iran, Sam described the ongoing conflict as a "very historical moment in our Iranian history'. Asked if he is afraid of US intervention, he said: "Not at all because the Americans, we believe, are not going to fight with the people, they are fighting with the Islamic Republic. They're against the ideology of the Islamic republic. So that's why we're not afraid. 'The view from inside Iran is that if a US attack happens, I think it will result in the fall of the Islamic Republic. I think these are the tools and the people inside are ready to take over the situation once the regime is weakened."

San Francisco Chronicle​

29 minutes ago

• San Francisco Chronicle​

Supreme Court will hear case of Rastafarian whose dreadlocks were shaved by Louisiana prison guards

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court agreed on Monday to hear the appeal of a former Louisiana prison inmate whose dreadlocks were cut off by prison guards in violation of his religious beliefs. The justices will review an appellate ruling that held that the former inmate, Damon Landor, could not sue prison officials for money damages under a federal law aimed at protecting prisoners' religious rights. Landor, an adherent of the Rastafari religion, even carried a copy of a ruling by the appeals court in another inmate's case holding that cutting religious prisoners' dreadlocks violates the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act. Landor hadn't cut his hair in nearly two decades when he entered Louisiana's prison system in 2020 on a five-month sentence. At his first two stops, officials respected his beliefs. But things changed when he got to the Raymond Laborde Correctional Center in Cottonport, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) northwest of Baton Rouge, for the final three weeks of his term. A prison guard took the copy of the ruling Landor carried and tossed it in the trash, according to court records. Then the warden ordered guards to cut his dreadlocks. While two guards restrained him, a third shaved his head to the scalp, the records show. Landor sued after his release, but lower courts dismissed the case. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lamented Landor's treatment but said the law doesn't allow him to hold prison officials liable for damages. The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the fall. President Donald Trump's Republican administration filed a brief supporting Landor's right to sue and urged the court to hear the case. Louisiana asked the justices to reject the appeal, even as it acknowledged Landor's mistreatment. Lawyers for the state wrote that 'the state has amended its prison grooming policy to ensure that nothing like petitioner's alleged experience can occur.' The Rastafari faith is rooted in 1930s Jamaica, growing as a response by Black people to white colonial oppression. Its beliefs are a melding of Old Testament teachings and a desire to return to Africa. Its message was spread across the world in the 1970s by Jamaican music icons Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, two of the faith's most famous exponents. The case is Landor v. Louisiana Department of Corrections, 23-1197.

The Hill

40 minutes ago

• The Hill

Supreme Court turns away Virginia's appeal in felon voting ban lawsuit

The Supreme Court turned away Virginia's appeal on Monday that sought to quash a challenge to the state's lifetime felon voting ban, allowing the lawsuit to move ahead toward trial. Two disenfranchised voters claim the ban violates the Virginia Readmission Act, a federal law that set conditions for Virginia to regain congressional representation following the Civil War. Lower courts allowed the suit to move forward, saying courts can enforce the Readmission Act and the state doesn't have 11th Amendment immunity. But Virginia's Republican-controlled attorney general's office argued to the justices that would open the 'floodgates' and mark a 'radical change in the law.' 'The Fourth Circuit's ruling that the Readmission Acts are judicially enforceable invites courts to wade into the political decisions that restored the rebel States to federal representation more than 150 years ago, calling into question Congress's continuing determination that the States have republican governments and are entitled to representation,' the state wrote in its petition. In a brief order, the Supreme Court declined to take up the case. A federal district judge is set to hold a bench trial in October in the case. It was filed in 2023 by two convicted felons who are ineligible to vote under the Virginia Constitution's lifetime voting ban for felons. Tati Abu King was originally convicted of robbery in 1988 before the governor restored her voting rights. She later lost them again after being convicted of felony drug possession. Toni Heath Johnson has various felony convictions dating back to the 1980s, including forgery, credit card theft and bigamy. Her voting rights, too, were restored, but she was subsequently convicted of drug possession and child endangerment. Their suit points to the Virginia Readmission Act, which was signed in 1870 following the Civil War and allowed the state to regain congressional representation. But it was conditioned on the state never changing its constitution to disenfranchise voters except for those convicted of 'such crimes as are now felonies at common law.' The two Virginians, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union and law firm Wilmer Hale, argue that exception only covers a handful of long-recognized felonies like murder, arson and rape. But they say their convictions weren't recognized at common law in 1870, so they should be able to vote. They urged the Supreme Court to turn away Virginia's appeal so the case can move forward. 'The Act's purpose was to prevent Virginia from manipulating statutory criminal law to disenfranchise Black voters—specifically, from convicting and disenfranchising newly freed Black residents based on statutory crimes that were not felonies at the time Virginia entered the Union,' their attorneys wrote.