While the media fixates on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s explosive Signal chat leak, a far more insidious breach of national security is unfolding under the Trump administration — one that could directly jeopardize the lives of countless individuals around the world.
The attention has largely been on the mishandling of sensitive military plans shared via Signal, but a devastating leak of U.S. government documents this week is raising even more alarms. According to a new Rolling Stone report, the fallout from this leak is far more dangerous, not just for U.S. officials, but for international workers and activists operating in repressive regimes.
“Reports that Donald Trump’s top national security officials accidentally shared their Yemen attack plans with The Atlantic in real-time drove the news in official Washington in recent days,” the Rolling Stone report notes. “But it wasn’t the only damaging leak of information held by the administration this week.”
The second leak involved two highly sensitive Trump administration spreadsheets containing detailed information about U.S. State Department and USAID-funded programs. The leak not only put the integrity of these programs at risk, but it also endangered the lives of individuals who rely on the confidentiality of such operations for their safety.
According to Rolling Stone, the documents were initially sent to Congress before being leaked to the public, putting international nonprofits and human rights groups into a desperate scramble.
“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 report reveals.
Despite initial assurances from the State Department to protect the information, including a promise that sensitive details about certain programs would remain confidential, the leaked spreadsheets contained data on programs operating in countries such as China, Russia, Iran, Uganda, and Cuba—places where revealing such information could prove fatal. For activists, aid workers, and local staff involved in these programs, exposure could mean imprisonment, torture, or even death at the hands of authoritarian regimes.
A key quote from the report highlights the gravity of the situation: “Lives are in danger that did not have to be,” said a source familiar with the incident. International nonprofit leaders voiced their outrage over what they described as the reckless treatment of partners’ safety. One executive put it bluntly: “In all our years of receiving grants from a range of governments, we have never seen the safety of government partners treated with such reckless abandon. People will lose their liberty, and possibly even more, because of this.”
Rolling Stone also notes this incident fits into a broader pattern of recklessness under the Trump administration. The report states that as part of the administration’s so-called campaign to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse,” they had demanded detailed information from grant recipients — including nonprofit organizations working in some of the most dangerous and repressive regions of the world. State Department personnel reportedly warned the nonprofits that if they were not willing to comply with the request for information — which would ultimately be made public — their funding could be at risk.
Despite their protests, many groups had no choice but to comply. Just days after receiving reassurances from State Department officials, the confidential spreadsheets were leaked, revealing sensitive details about ongoing projects that could make activists and workers even more vulnerable. It became clear that U.S. partners who had worked for decades on humanitarian projects now faced the threat of retaliation, with details about them and their activities exposed to the world.
In private messages shared within USAID circles, one warning was explicit: “Please do not share the spreadsheet that was circulating yesterday with terminated awards listed and if possible remove it or ask it to be removed from anywhere you’ve seen it. It contains information about partners who are working in unsafe environments with restricted civil society space or terrible LGBTQ laws etc.”
The fallout was immediate. Groups rushed to assess the damage, contacting local activists to ensure their safety and implementing emergency measures. One top executive from a U.S. government partner group summed it up by saying, “People will lose their liberty, and possibly even more, because of this.”
