DOGE attempts to enter an agency building led to physical standoff that spilled into court
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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.
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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.”