The head of a minor federal agency devoted to promoting investments in African nations initiated legal action on Thursday to prevent its termination by the Trump administration.
Ward Brehm, CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF), mentioned in his lawsuit that he instructed his team to obstruct the entrance to personnel from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and Pete Marocco, the deputy administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
Brehm argued that neither DOGE nor Trump possessed the legal authority to dissolve the agency, which was legislatively established by Congress.
Following an executive order from President Donald Trump targeting the agency as part of a strategy to downsize the federal government, DOGE personnel reportedly attempted to gain access to the agency’s computer networks.
The lawsuit filed in Washington’s U.S. District Court claimed, “When USADF learned that DOGE was there to kill the agency, USADF staff refused DOGE access to cancel all grants and contracts.”
Anna Kelly, a spokesperson from the White House, commented, “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.”
The State Department has not yet responded to requests for comments.
Under the Trump administration’s directive, DOGE and Musk, a billionaire whose companies hold federal contracts, were tasked with eliminating waste, addressing fraud, and reducing the national debt.
Brehm’s lawsuit also stated that Marocco and DOGE, both aligned politically with Trump, have similarly targeted the Inter-American Foundation, which invests in Latin America and the Caribbean.
This past Tuesday, DOGE announced that all employees, save for one, at the Inter-American Foundation had been dismissed, and grants were revoked, impacting projects such as alpaca farming in Peru, vegetable gardens in El Salvador, and beekeeping in Brazil.
Targets of Trump’s cost-reduction efforts also include the U.S. Institute of Peace and the Presidio Trust, both of which remain operational and are preparing the required information for the White House.
The National Endowment for Democracy, another institution affected, filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming its funding had been inappropriately withheld, an unprecedented situation in the Endowment’s 42-year history.
The organization reported distributing $238 million in grants in 2023, with some funds channeled through the International Republican Institute, where Secretary of State Marco Rubio once served as a board member.
