Related Articles
The lawyer working for Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who now leads the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has a history of violence and racist remarks, 10 people who knew him allege.
Jeremy Lewin recently became deputy administrator for policy and programs for what’s left of USAID, according to an email sent by the State Department. Lewin previously helped DOGE dismantle the agency, according to news reports. On Friday, Lewin signed an email officially shuttering USAID and announcing a major reduction in force.
In the email, which indicated most of USAID’s staff would have their roles eliminated, Lewin wrote that he, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and other top officials “are grateful for your continued service to our great nation.” He continued: “I would like to offer a special thank you to those of you who, even amid considerable personal and professional uncertainty, have remained steadfastly committed to serving the agency and its important mission. You exemplify the very best ideals for public service and will not be forgotten or overlooked in this transition process.”
Lewin has prestigious institutions and law firms on his resume, and he’s worked with a renowned liberal scholar and clerked for a progressive jurist. But his ascension at USAID, America’s foreign aid bureau, has sparked concerns among people who have known him over the years.
Rolling Stone spoke with 10 such people, who allege that Lewin had a history of violent outbursts and racist remarks. Police records show he was also once accused of threatening a girl with a knife, asking why “he shouldn’t gut [her] and cut [her] right now.” The girl told police she feared for her life.
Lewin and the Trump administration have not responded to repeated requests for comment.
As deputy administrator of USAID, Lewin functions as its chief operating officer. Rubio said that 83 percent of the agency’s programs have already been canceled, but sources told The New York Times that some programs involving life-saving medication and national security are likely to be preserved.
Lewin, a 28-year-old attorney, attended Harvard Law, where he worked as an assistant to prominent legal scholar Laurence Tribe. He also clerked for a D.C. federal judge and worked brief stints at several high profile law firms during his two-year career as an attorney.
The son of a world-renowned classical pianist, Lewin attended the prestigious Massachusetts preparatory high school Buckingham Browne & Nichols School. The Cambridge private school is one of the top feeder schools for Ivy League universities like Harvard, according to The Harvard Crimson. Six people who knew him then described a troubled teen who made outlandish claims and expressed racist remarks.
“I have a vivid memory of him telling me that he believed non-white people were inherently of ‘lower value’ than white people,” a former acquaintance who describes him as “blatantly racist” tells Rolling Stone.
Five other former acquaintances agree that Lewin expressed views they considered racist.
One of those former classmates remembers Lewin claiming that white people were biologically more intelligent than non-white people. Another person who knew Lewin well as a teenager recalls him being ejected from classes for espousing racist ideals. “He was into the Great Replacement Theory before it was a thing,” they say, referring to the racist, far-right conspiracy theory that the elite want to allow in hordes of immigrants to erode the political power of white people.
“Hearing that he is in charge of USAID now gives me the chills,” a former acquaintance of Lewin tells Rolling Stone. “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.”
Seven people also allege that Lewin has a history of violent outbursts. While he was at Buckingham Browne & Nichols, Lewin allegedly hit another student with a bowl in the cafeteria and was suspended, seven people tell Rolling Stone.
One witness to the bowl incident says Lewin attacked the student in the school cafeteria after the student said something that upset him and recalled the student’s nose bleeding profusely.
A different classmate tweeted in 2013 that Lewin had thrown a chair at him. In another tweet, that classmate tagged the boy who was hit with the bowl, inviting him to the “club of having [Lewin] throw things at him,” and adding the hashtag “#angrylewin.”
“Violent rages were kind of his thing,” another former classmate says. “I definitely saw him throwing things at people.”
Another incident took place out of school, at a party Lewin threw in July 2015 at his parents’ home in Newton, according to a police report and three witnesses who spoke to Rolling Stone. It was the summer after he graduated high school, when he was 18.
Police were called to Lewin’s parents’ home after he allegedly brandished a kitchen knife at a girl, three witnesses say. They remember Lewin making threatening comments toward the girl, who was a minor at the time, and describe it as feeling like a sudden overreaction.
“You can never really tell when he’s gonna fly off the handle,” says one of those witnesses.
“Jeremy started yelling at her and blamed her for his missing belongings,” says the police report. “[Redacted] states during the argument Jeremy pulled out a knife with an Orange [sic] handle and said ‘Tell me why I shouldn’t gut you and cut you right now.’ [Redacted] continued to tell [police officers] that she felt threatened by Lewin’s actions and she was in fear for her life. [Redacted] then left the party and had her friend drop her off at the Newton Police Station.”
In the report, Lewin told police that the girl threatened him during an argument and threw a notepad at his head. He admitted taking out a knife, but said he slammed it on the kitchen countertop and asked her to leave in response.
The knife was confiscated by police, the report says. The police officer who investigated the incident called for a hearing to be scheduled “for the charge of assault by means of a dangerous weapon.” One of the party witnesses tells Rolling Stone the hearing was ultimately canceled, for unknown reasons.
Representatives from the Newton Police Department and Newton District Court both said they could not provide further information on the case.
At least eight people tell Rolling Stone that Lewin regularly presented fanciful and dubious claims. He told people in high school that he was in talks to design body armor for the U.S. government with a multimillion-dollar contract, they say.
An archived version of Lewin’s biography at his most recent law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP, claimed that Lewin “confidentially advised senior global policymakers,” including former President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
After high school, Lewin pursued an educational and career trajectory that spanned the ideological spectrum, despite his own personal politics. At Dartmouth University, he was a member of the College Republican Club, and contributed a piece to the conservative Dartmouth Review, but while at Harvard Law, he penned liberal-leaning op-eds with prominent liberal congressional scholar Laurence Tribe.
One of those editorials, published in The Guardian, warned that the conservative-dominated Supreme Court “has climate protection in its sights.” Another piece the two wrote for The New York Times argued that the U.S. should liquidate Russia’s federal reserves and give it to Ukraine in response to Russia’s invasion.
While at Harvard Law, Lewin wrote a 2021 opinion piece titled “The Progressive Case for Libel Reform,” in The Wall Street Journal, arguing that progressives should support overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark press protection 1964 decision. Lewin argued that rather than harming liberal values of free expression, overturning Sullivan would increase the media’s incentive to be honest. “Progressives should eagerly embrace such movement toward a more truthful society,” he wrote.
Lewin worked as Tribe’s assistant, a position also famously held by former President Barack Obama as well as Kenneth Chesebro, an attorney indicted as part of Trump’s legal plot to overturn the 2020 election.
Tribe has not responded to requests for comment.
After law school, Lewin clerked for Judge Judith Rogers, the first Black woman appointed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and who is known for her progressive stances.
Some of those who knew Lewin say they aren’t surprised that Lewin achieved such early success. At least six of the people Rolling Stone spoke with describe him as intelligent and driven as he was difficult to get along with.
A fellow former Dartmouth College Republican member, Michaelle Knesbach, tells Rolling Stone she thinks Lewin has a chance to improve the U.S. foreign aid apparatus and make it work for the United States’ interests.
“I was in a few classes with Jeremy and always found him to have nuanced and educated views,” she says. “He seemed to be a very smart guy, and I am excited to see what he makes of his career.”
Lewin is now playing a leadership role at USAID, which has already been gutted to the bone. His appointment to the deputy administrator position was viewed by some pundits to be a legal maneuver, after a federal judge found that Musk and DOGE’s efforts to shutter the agency were likely unconstitutional. That federal judge, however, indicated that appointing Lewin to USAID didn’t exempt Lewin from any decisions about the illegality of DOGE’s actions at USAID.
The judge specifically included Lewin in his order prohibiting DOGE from continuing to shut down the agency. It is unclear if Lewin’s Friday email violated that order, though an appeals court ruling that same day allowed the administration to keep dismantling the agency.
Prior to his hiring as USAID’s deputy administrator, Lewin was reportedly earning a salary of $167,000 as the DOGE lead at the agency, seeking daily approvals from Rubio for billions of dollars in cuts, according to Bloomberg.
The Trump administration plans to fold the scraps of USAID into a new agency within the State Department, to be named the U.S. Agency for International Humanitarian Assistance, according to The New York Times.
A source close to the agency tells Rolling Stone that supervisors recently began onboarding the few remaining USAID staffers onto State Department systems.
Those left at the agency are wondering what’s coming next.
“We are petrified,” a staffer tells Rolling Stone. “Honestly, we are just broken.”
