by Brianna Tucker (c) 2025 , The Washington Post
Employees of the U.S. DOGE Service, the organization overseen by Elon Musk that is tasked with slashing the size of the federal government, successfully gained access to the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) headquarters in downtown Washington on Thursday, a day after the small aid agency blocked the group from entering. The DOGE employees returned to the USADF offices around 10:30 a.m. Eastern time, according to several agency officials with firsthand knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to prevent professional retribution. About an hour later, Pete Marocco – director of the State Department’s Office of Foreign Assistance and acting deputy administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) – arrived with five U.S. Marshals and a handful of DOGE employees, according to several USADF staffers outside and video obtained by The Washington Post. Much like the scene Wednesday, the group demanded access to the 10th floor where the foundation’s offices are. The show of force by Trump administration officials and federal law enforcement resulted in a frantic and “traumatizing” scene, the USADF officials told The Post, and triggered a federal lawsuit filed by the aid organization’s leader against President Donald Trump, Marocco and DOGE officials, claiming they are unauthorized to represent the agency and requesting an immediate intervention by the court. “The United States African Development Foundation (USADF) offices were entered today by Mr. Peter Marocco and others who we do not believe are authorized to represent the agency. USADF is fully complying with its statutory obligations. We will follow the law with the expectation that our staff will be treated with dignity and respect,” the aid organization said in a statement to The Post. A federal judge imposed a pause Thursday evening barring the Trump administration, Marocco and DOGE employees from removing USADF President and CEO Ward Brehm. U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon issued an administrative stay until 5 p.m. Tuesday to allow the court to deliberate on the lawsuit “given the significant statutory and constitutional issues involved.” The order also stated that during this time, Brehm may not be removed from his capacity as president of the agency “absent a decision by the lawfully-constituted Board of USADF” or obstructed from his duties, and that defendants may not appoint Marocco or recognize any other person as president or as an acting board member without Senate confirmation. In a statement to The Post, a White House official tied the nature of the DOGE visit to an executive order issued Feb. 19 from Trump eliminating “unnecessary government entities” and reducing their operations and personnel “to the minimum presence and function required by law.” “President Trump signed an executive order to reduce the federal bureaucracy, which reduced the USADF to its statutory minimum, and appointed Peter Marocco as acting Chairman of the Board. Entitled, rogue bureaucrats have no authority to defy executive orders by the President of the United States or physically bar his representatives from entering the agencies they run,” White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. A USADF official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to prevent professional retribution, told The Post in response to the White House statement: “Clearly, this White House spokesperson doesn’t know who Ward Brehm is. He’s hardly an entitled bureaucrat, having never worked for the government before he took this assignment. Ward is a well-known, conservative Republican businessman from Minnesota who has volunteered as a board member for USADF for over 20 years.” According to agency officials, few USADF personnel were inside the office – many chose to telework after Wednesday’s standoff – when they were notified by fellow staffers who were having lunch nearby that DOGE officials and later Marocco and U.S. Marshals were arriving on the premises. The staffers inside the office exited the building via a stairwell – bypassing the elevators because of an ongoing power outage – leaving behind their personal belongings to avoid confrontation with DOGE employees and U.S. Marshals, USADF officials said. As agency personnel waited outside and huddled together at a nearby business, some received calls from Nate Cavanaugh, the 28-year-old tech entrepreneur working with the U.S. DOGE Service, who was on-site and had claimed for a second day to be a USADF employee and requested employees to return and grant him access to the computer systems. But no USADF officials returned to the office, a senior USADF official said. That official also stated that the agency was aware that Marocco “came down to dismantle the entire agency and fire all staff” by accessing USADF systems, canceling grants and contracts, and installing a “reduction in force” order. Hours passed as DOGE employees remained inside the USADF headquarters before agency employees were instructed by leadership to return home. At 2:30 p.m., Brehm, who was not in Washington, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to block DOGE from accessing USADF and removing him as its president. “Without this Court’s immediate intervention, Defendants will continue their tactics and strongarm their way into USADF, no matter that USADF has legally constituted Board and President,” the lawsuit stated, claiming that DOGE and Marocco exceeded their legal authority and are “outright ignoring the law in their attempts to remove Plaintiff Brehm and shut down USADF.” DOGE employees were still inside the agency offices at 5 p.m., according to a USADF official who was in touch with an on-duty security guard at the building. USADF is a nonpartisan, independent agency established through the African Development Foundation Act of 1980 with a mission to support and invest directly in African-owned and African-led enterprises that improve the lives and livelihoods of people in underserved communities in Africa, according to the agency’s website. The U.S. statute that created the agency states that the foundation “shall have perpetual succession unless dissolved by an Act of Congress,” underscoring that only congressional action and not an executive order can dissolve it, raising broader questions among legal experts about whether Trump’s executive order to eliminate it and efforts by the U.S. DOGE Service violate constitutional law. “When Congress speaks, that is definitive under Article I of the Constitution. That is as true when it comes to ADF as any other agency, large or small, well known or otherwise. Trump, Musk and DOGE have been running rampant over legal limits – no wonder the courts have been stopping the administration at so many turns,” Norman Eisen, a senior fellow at Brookings, told The Post. Unlike some other foreign aid agencies – such as USAID, which employs thousands of federal workers – USADF is significantly smaller, with only about 50 employees. It is operated by a board of directors whose seven members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. The board of directors selects the USADF president and chief executive, currently Brehm, who manages the day-to-day activities of the foundation. “If DOGE achieves its goal of shutting down USADF, we will feel the ripple effects across the African continent and in the United States,” Brehm said in a statement. “Our work boosts economic stability in fragile regions, with investments in more than 1,000 African-owned and led businesses, entrepreneurs, and organizations. Not only have we improved the lives of millions of people in Africa, we’ve contributed to a safer and more secure world.” Brehm, a prominent Republican from Minneapolis and an active member of the Fellowship, a Christian organization that hosts the National Prayer Breakfast, had been serving as a longtime board member of USADF until an officer from the White House Presidential Personnel Office notified him via email that he would be removed from the board on Feb. 24. On Feb. 28, board members received an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office stating that Marocco would be appointed acting board chair. But USADF board members, pointing to the U.S. statute that established the agency, said to become the board’s chair, Marocco would have to be appointed to the board and then confirmed by the Senate. A USADF official confirmed that former U.S. senator Carol Moseley Braun (D-Illinois) is the board’s chair and has been since her Senate confirmation in March 2024. Moseley Braun declined to comment on Thursday evening. The White House did not respond to a request for comment Thursday evening asking how an acting chair could be appointed to a board with a chair in place. On March 3, the USADF board voted Brehm as president and CEO of the agency, citing a critical need to fill a vacancy created several weeks earlier. He replaced Travis Adkins, who held the office since January 2022. One USADF official close to the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the situation candidly, characterized Brehm’s attempted removal from the board as puzzling, given Brehm’s distinction in evangelical communities and his decades of advocacy for African nations. “This is not the case of Democratic resistance, this is a conservative Republican who believes in their mission and fighting for his agency,” the official said. “It’s an act of conscience and conviction.” – – – Gaya Gupta and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.