How A Tiny Federal Agency’s Lawsuit Could Provide The Smoking Gun Against DOGE

The president of the U.S. African Development Foundation, one of the federal government’s smallest agencies, filed a lawsuit against the Department of Government Efficiency on Thursday afternoon after DOGE operatives and other government officials successfully gained access to the foundation’s building and moved to shut it down.

The actions of DOGE and Pete Marocco, a State Department official and DOGE ally, on Thursday followed a days-long standoff with the African Development Foundation after its president, Ward Brehm, refused them access to the building.

DOGE and Marocco deployed U.S. Marshals to force their way into the building on Thursday and began to dismantle the agency, which provides grants and loans to organizations in Africa.

The lawsuit filed by Brehm on behalf of the foundation provides the clearest details about how DOGE operates, including evidence that it is exercising powers far beyond its mandate or what is legally or constitutionally permitted. What Brehm details about how DOGE aimed to dismantle both his agency and the Inter-American Foundation may help other plaintiffs challenging the constitutionality and legality of billionaire Elon Musk’s appointment to lead DOGE and its actions across the federal government.

It may also be the lawsuit with the highest likelihood of a judge granting a temporary order restraining Musk and DOGE, as the facts presented match what a judge in another case against Musk and DOGE said plaintiffs lacked.

“This is a very clear inside account from a plaintiff with first hand knowledge of DOGE’s actions from the inside of the government and shows exactly the pattern that we discussed in our lawsuit of lawless actions like seeking to take over and dismantle federal agencies,” said Kate Huddleston, a lawyer with the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit watchdog that separately brought suit against Musk and DOGE on behalf of four other nonprofit groups.

A district court judge imposed a brief administrative stay in the case on Thursday night to allow the parties to brief the court ahead of an initial hearing. That stay denied the Trump administration the ability to remove Brehm and appoint Marocco in his place as acting USADF president until at least 5 p.m. on March 11. The plaintiffs are seeking a temporary restraining order to extend the stay.

This is now the seventh case challenging Musk’s appointment as unlawful and unconstitutional and the actions of DOGE as similarly unlawful and unconstitutional. All the cases allege that Musk is exercising the powers of a principal officer and, therefore, must be confirmed by the Senate, as required by the Constitution’s Appointments Clause. (Brehm’s lawsuit also alleges violations of numerous laws.) They also argue that DOGE is an unconstitutionally created agency exercising powers it does not constitutionally have, under the direction of an unconstitutionally appointed director, and that therefore, all of its actions are unlawful.

In the case of the African Development Foundation, or USADF, the plaintiffs also argue that the African Development Foundation Act does not allow the U.S. president to appoint an acting USADF board member or president without Senate confirmation, nor does the Federal Vacancies Reform Act allow the U.S. president to appoint acting heads to multimember agencies.

The Trump administration claims Musk does not lead DOGE and insists DOGE is not actually taking actions, merely recommending them to relevant government leaders.

However, both Trump and Musk have provided copious evidence, in various public forums like the president’s joint speech to Congress and Musk’s voluminous social media posts, that the administration’s claims are false.

The complaint filed in USADF’s case adds to this record, with the most detailed firsthand account of how DOGE is not just making recommendations but also taking unlawful actions, often through deception and by dismissing laws as mere roadblocks to be moved aside.

The standoff between DOGE and the U.S. African Development Foundation began on Feb. 19 when President Donald Trump signed an executive order purporting to shut down certain government agencies. The executive order’s list of agencies to shut down included both USADF and the Inter-American Foundation.

The two small agencies were both created and funded by Congress to make grants and loans in Africa and Latin America, respectively. They are led by boards headed by presidential appointees who require Senate confirmation. Those boards then appoint a president to direct their operations.

The laws creating them do not allow for the appointment of an acting or interim board member outside of the Senate confirmation process.

Following the Feb. 19 executive order, DOGE operative Chris Young arrived at the African Development Foundation’s headquarters on Feb. 20 purporting to “modernize architecture, system design, and improve government efficiency,” according to the complaint, which described this as a ruse.

The next day, DOGE employees Ethan Shaotran and Nate Cavanaugh and DOGE lawyer Jake Altik arrived and informed USADF leadership that they were actually there to “reduce the functions of the Foundation to the ‘minimum presence and function,’” according to the complaint. The DOGE employees “demanded immediate access to USADF systems including financial records, payment and human resources systems to include staff job descriptions, personnel files, salaries, and organizational structure,” which agency leaders denied because the DOGE operatives did not have proper security clearances or waivers of federal privacy laws.

“The U.S. DOGE Service representatives responded by noting that they would seek waivers to avoid the clearance process from the USADF Board,” the complaint states. “Altik stated that if the Board was unable to provide immediate clearance, they would issue a notice of dismissal to all members of the Board.”

This request was also denied. However, DOGE operatives called board member John Agwunobi on Feb. 22 and falsely informed him “that all the other members of the Board had been terminated, and asked Agwunobi to implement the U.S. DOGE Service’s vision of the minimum statutory functions of USADF.”

Agwunobi declined to do this.

On Feb. 24, the White House told Brehm they were kicking him off the board. A Feb. 28 letter to Brehm and the board purported to name Marocco as the acting president and sole member of the board, despite the law creating the agency not allowing for acting presidents and the board members not receiving any notice of their dismissal.

After the agency board met on March 4 and ruled Marocco’s appointment was illegal and that Brehm remained the board chair, Marocco and DOGE operatives attempted to access the building but were denied entry. They threatened security officers with lawsuits and said they would return with U.S. Marshals and the Secret Service to force entry.

They did just that on Thursday, when Marocco and DOGE operatives took control of the agency’s headquarters with the support of U.S. Marshals and commenced dismantling its operations. Brehm’s lawsuit followed shortly thereafter.

The exact same series of events, minus the standoff, occurred at the Inter-American Foundation just days before the attempt to destroy the African Development Foundation, according to the complaint.

DOGE operatives Shaotran and Cavanaugh also met with Inter-American Foundation leadership on Feb. 20 to discuss technological upgrades, per the complaint. And similarly, the two then reportedly demanded that the agency’s board convene immediately to authorize a reduction in force and a dismantling of the agency or else be fired.

IAF leadership also said this was not possible and that there were legal requirements to call a board meeting.

“The DOGE representatives stated that they were not concerned with these legal requirements and that they needed an immediate yes-or-no answer from the Board,” the complaint states.

On Feb. 28, the IAF board received notice that Trump had named Marocco as acting board chair and sole board member. As with the African Development Foundation, board positions at the Inter-American Foundation are Senate-approved positions and the law that created the agency does not provide for an acting member.

Marocco then purported to hold an impromptu board meeting, with just himself in attendance, outside of the Inter-American Foundation’s headquarters to appoint himself as the agency’s president, according to the complaint, and then directed the Bureau of Fiscal Service at the Treasury Department to halt all “but a handful” of funds connected to the agency.

Brehm’s complaint provides evidence that DOGE is not just making recommendations, but directly taking actions it is not legally or constitutionally allowed to make. These actions include the direction or suspension of agency funding, the dismantling of agency operations and the firing of agency personnel.

DOGE operatives Shaotran, Cavanaugh and Altik came to the African Development Foundation and the Inter-American Foundation to demand access to begin dismantling the agencies. They are also the ones who personally threatened the boards with termination and placed deceptive phone calls to try and trick or coerce board members into doing their bidding.

In the case of the Inter-American Foundation, they even stated that they “were not concerned with … legal requirements” needed to call for a board meeting.

The dismantling of the Inter-American Foundation also shows how DOGE’s access to the Bureau of Fiscal Service, which houses the Treasury payment systems that serve as the central nervous system for all federal government funding inputs and outputs, allows it to control agency spending. The foundation’s grants and contracts were all stopped via the Bureau of Fiscal Service — a direct act by DOGE to direct or suspend agency spending.

These facts, detailed in the complaint, are something that almost all of the other cases brought against Musk and DOGE have lacked. They provide a firsthand account of DOGE’s actions in a legal setting without simply relying on publicly available news reports. They also show a direct and immediate injury to the plaintiff through Brehm’s purported removal and Marocco’s purported self-appointment.

These are the necessary elements Judge Tanya Chutkan said were missing in a separate case 14 states brought against Musk and DOGE when she denied the plaintiffs a temporary restraining order.

“[News] reports cannot substitute for ‘specific facts in an affidavit or a verified complaint’ that ‘clearly show that immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage will result,’” Chutkan wrote.

She added that she would deny the temporary restraining order as “litigants have failed to show imminent harm.” However, “When litigants have identified specific individuals or programs imminently targeted by Defendants, courts have issued appropriately tailored TROs.”

“This really points to the importance of folks who have first hand knowledge speaking out and sharing info about the lawless actions that are occurring throughout the federal government,” Huddleston said.

Brehm’s lawsuit fits these requirements. It also provides further evidence that DOGE is operating as an unlawful government agency.

Judge Richard Leon will hold the first hearing on the case on March 11.