DOGE attempts to enter an agency building led to physical standoff that spilled into court
A small federal agency that sends money to help communities in Africa became a flashpoint Thursday in the Trump administration's efforts to shut down foreign aid and reduce the size of the federal government.
A Trump-backed government official, staffers from the Department of Government Efficiency and federal law enforcement entered the offices of the U.S. African Development Foundation on Thursday, and the fight between the Senate-confirmed foundation's board and Trump administration emissaries spilled into an emergency court fight, according to court records and photos of the in-person standoff captured by the New York Times.
The standoff was quelled when a judge stepped in Thursday afternoon, keeping the foundation's existing board in place for a few days until a court hearing could take place.
The African Development Foundation, an independent agency that has provided more than $100 million to African farmers, entrepreneurs and community organizations in the last five years, has been among the foreign aid groups that Trump has targeted to eliminate via an executive order he issued two weeks ago. The work of DOGE at the agency so far, the lawsuit says, mirrors how other foreign aid agencies have been dismantled by the Trump administration.
Trump's plan for the African Development Foundation snapped into action almost immediately, with DOGE staffers meeting with the foundation's leadership within days of Trump's February 21 executive order. The Trump administration then told a board member, Ward Brehm, he was being removed from his position, and a new acting chair would be in charge.
Faced with the overhaul, the board held an emergency meeting on Monday to push back, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court in Washington this week. The board decided Trump's appointee, Peter Marocco — the de-facto acting leader of USAID, another agency Trump has targeted — was not lawfully in the job, and they alerted Congress, the removed board member Ward Brehm's lawsuit said.
Marocco still showed up at the fund's headquarters with staffers of the Department of Government Efficiency on Wednesday afternoon. They 'were denied access to those offices,' the lawsuit said. 'Marocco and his colleagues threatened to return to the offices with United States Marshals and Secret Service.'
Yet Marocco did get into the building on Thursday with the backing of federal law enforcement, Brehm's attorneys also said in court papers. Staffers from DOGE also attempted to get access to the foundation's computer systems and personnel files on Thursday, the court papers said.
'Marocco and DOGE showed up with U.S. Marshals and forced their way into USADF,' Brehm's lawyers wrote about the events of Thursday. 'At the very moment that this motion is being finalized, Marocco and DOGE are demanding—based on Marocco's illusory authority—immediate access to USADF's computer systems.'
The New York Times published photos on Thursday of DOGE workers in an elevator at the foundation's offices and US Marshals walking down a hallway past the foundation's reception desk.
A spokesperson for USADF said Friday the agency's locks were changed and staffers couldn't access the offices, adding that DOGE staffers have not been able to access USADF systems yet. The spokesperson claimed the agency's X account was banned or shut down on Thursday, which they described as 'a concerning development for the agency's right to free speech.'
While the lawsuit, filed by lawyers from the left-leaning group Democracy Forward, contests Brehm's removal from the leadership post, it also argues that it fears the Trump administration is attempting to shutter the fund's work by ending its foreign development grants and taking over its software systems.
'We will continue to use every tool available to protect USADF and fight back against the Trump-Musk overreach,' Skye Perryman, the head of Democracy Forward, said in a statement on Thursday.
The lawsuit argues that the African Development Foundation's board must be approved by the Senate. The Foundation was created specifically by an act of Congress 45 years ago, the lawsuit notes.
Federal judge Richard Leon of the DC District Court on Thursday said that from now until a least a court hearing next Tuesday, Brehm can't be removed from the board and Marocco can't be appointed to it.
CNN's Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report.
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