Tiny Independent Agency Punches DOGE In The Nose

Every day under the DOGE regime is more surreal and terrifying than the last. Here’s an excerpt from a lawsuit filed yesterday by Ward Brehm, the President and CEO of the United States African Development Foundation:

Defendants have made clear their intentions: ignore statutory requirements, pretend that leadership of the agency does not exist, and shutter USADF. That is precisely what they did to USADF’s sister agency, the InterAmerican Foundation (IAF). Using the same bullying tactics, they attempted to get access to IAF’s grants and contracts. When that failed, they purported to fire IAF’s President and then announced by fiat that Marocco had been appointed sole board member (despite the IAF board also not having been fired). In a closed-door board meeting last Friday, February 28—which consisted of just Marocco in the IAF lobby—Marocco appointed himself acting President of IAF. That night, at Marocco’s direction, Treasury cancelled all but a handful of IAF’s contracts. And two days ago, purporting to act as both President and sole board member, Marocco directed DOGE to cancel all but a few of IAF’s grants, shut employees out of the IT systems, laid off almost the entire IAF staff, and shut down IAF’s website.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but this shit is crazy, and some of the best coverage has been by journalist Garrett Graff, who has been writing it up the way we’d report it if it happened in Not America.

Trump is currently breaking the government through parallel campaigns to seize control of federal spending and convert the executive branch into a pure spoils system. To accomplish the latter, he has to gut civil service protections for bureaucrats and destroy congressional protections for leaders of independent agencies. What’s happening at USADF and IAF involves both.

The Inter-American Foundation and the US African Development Foundation are independent agencies established by Congress to promote development in Central and South America and Africa. Under 22 USC § 290, the board of USADF and its director shall be “appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.” Brehm, a Republican businessman from Minnesota, has served as director, a voluntary, uncompensated position, since his appointment by President George W. Bush in 2004.

In a February 19 executive order, President Trump purported to shut down multiple federal agencies, including USADF and the IAF as part of his plan “to dramatically reduce the size of the Federal Government, while increasing its accountability to the American people.” His edict directed that “the non-statutory components and functions of the following governmental entities shall be eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”

The “maximum extent with applicable law” would appear to be circumscribed by Congress, which specified in the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2024 that the $45 million allocated to the USADF (and the $62 million for IAF) “may not be used to implement a reorganization, redesign, or other plan described in subsection (b) by the Department of State, the United States Agency for International Development, or any other Federal department, agency, or organization funded by this Act without prior consultation by the head of such department, agency, or organization with the appropriate congressional committees.”

But Trump and Elon Musk have never been concerned with such niceties. According to Brehm’s complaint, they sent the DOGE bros into IAF, declared themselves the new masters, and shut the place down in short order.

Perhaps aware that they might face some resistance at USADF, the DOGE team’s initial approach promised that the tech teens would simply be offering their “software expertise to modernize architecture, system design, and improve government efficiency.” But after the memorandum of understanding was signed, the DOGE team announced that their real purpose was to shut the agency down pursuant to Trump’s executive order.

The scrappy little agency put up a hell of a fight. Channeling their inner Cypress Hill, the board utterly refused to surrender their statutory authority, even as State Department goon Pete Marocco declared himself the only board member and its director. And on March 5, when Marocco showed up with his merry band of incels, they were denied admission.

Yesterday, Marocco and the DOGE team forced their way in with the help of federal marshals. The scene reported by the Washington Post appears to have ended in a silent draw.

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.

It’s unclear if the DOGE dipshits ever got into USADF’s computers, or if they contented themselves with smashing a couple of laptops and taking a whiz on the conference room table before skulking off to cancel grandma’s social security checks.

At 2:30, Brehm sought emergency relief from the federal court in DC. And by 7pm, Judge Richard Leon had issued an administrative stay and scheduled a hearing for 2 p.m. Monday.

It is further ORDERED that during the pendency of the stay, defendants are prohibited from taking the following actions: (1) “[Ward Brehm] may not be removed from his office as President of USADF, or in any way be treated as having been removed, denied or obstructed in accessing any of the benefits or resources of his office, or otherwise be obstructed from his ability to carry out his duties, absent a decision by the lawfully-constituted Board of USADF to remove him from that office,” and (2) “the [d]efendants may not appoint Pete Marocco or any other person as an acting member of the Board of USADF, may not appoint Pete Marocco or any other person as President of USADF in place of [p]laintiff, or otherwise recognize any other person as a member of the Board of USADF absent Senate confirmation or as President of USADF absent appointment by a lawfully-constituted Board.”

Can’t wait for DOJ’s response on Sunday explaining how Seila Law means that Trump can magically substitute some sociopathic functionary to oversee every independent agency.

We ain’t goin’ out like that. We ain’t goin’ out LIKE THAT.

Brehm v. Marocco [Docket via Court Listener]

DOGE staffers bring U.S. marshals to small federal agency that denied them access [WaPo]

Liz Dye lives in Baltimore where she produces the Law and Chaos substack and podcast.

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