President Donald Trump has ordered the shutdown of the U.S. African Development Foundation.
A U.S. judge on March 6 blocked President Donald Trump’s administration from closing a federal agency, at least for now.
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon entered an administrative stay that prevents the federal government from shutting down the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) until at least 5 p.m. on March 11.
Leon issued the stay after Ward Brehm, president and CEO of the foundation, asked for emergency intervention from the court and before federal lawyers had an opportunity to lodge a filing in response.
“An administrative stay ‘buys the court time to deliberate’: it ‘do[es] not typically reflect the courts consideration of the merits,’ but instead ’reflects a first-blush judgment about the relative consequences’ of the case,” Leon wrote, quoting from a previous ruling.
Brehm sued Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after he said DOGE accessed USADF systems in a bid to shutter the agency.
He said Trump’s attempt to close the agency runs counter to a federal law, which states that the agency “shall have perpetual succession unless dissolved by an Act of Congress.”
As part of the effort, DOGE workers gained access to the agency “under the false pretenses of modernizing and streamlining USADF’s computer systems,” according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington. “When USADF learned that DOGE was there to kill the agency, USADF staff refused DOGE access to cancel all grants and contracts.”
On March 5, DOGE employees and Pete Marocco, who has been said to have been appointed as the sole USADF board member, tried entering USADF’s offices but were prevented at the direction of Brehm, according to the suit. A White House official told The Epoch Times that the portrayal was inaccurate and that the team was able to access the building after the U.S. Department of Justice determined they had a right to enter.
Brehm requested the court prevent him from being removed, absent a decision from the foundation’s actual board, and an order declaring any actions taken by Marocco and “any other improperly appointed person” void.
Trump, with assistance from DOGE, has been undertaking a broad plan to cut the federal government’s size, including the abolishment of some agencies and the reduction of others.
