Judges Finds a Huge Reduction in Staff and Funding Would be Legal at African Development Agency

By THALIA BEATY

7:44 PM EDT, March 11, 2025

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge on Tuesday found that removing most grants and most staff from a U.S. federal agency that invests in African small businesses would be legal.

U.S. District Judge Richard Leon also refused to extend an order blocking the Trump administration from removing the leaders of the U.S. African Development Foundation, which invests millions of dollars in African small businesses.

USADF is an independent agency created by Congress in 1980 and is controlled by board members who must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

The case, filed by Ward Brehm, the president of USADF, raised questions about the extent of the president’s authority to remove board members and to reduce the size of the agency, which currently employs around 50 people.

Maintaining USADF’s board, a president and one or two grants would “comply with the statutory requirements,” Leon wrote.

However, he questioned whether the Trump administration had the power to install a board chair on a temporary basis.

USADF last week tried to keep staff from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency from entering their offices in Washington. DOGE staff managed to gain entry after returning with U.S. Marshals.

Leon ordered the government to prepare those DOGE staff to explain to the court what steps they had taken to maintain the agency at “the minimum presence and function required by law.”

The judge said he would consider additional arguments for a block as the case unfolds.

Trump last month in an executive order targeted USADF and three other agencies for closure in an effort to deliver on campaign promises to shrink the size of the federal government.

Attorneys for the Trump administration have argued that USADF’s board has “done everything possible to avoid complying with the President’s clear directives,” and that “the President must be able to designate acting officials to fulfill his duty to enforce the laws.”

Congress in 2023 allocated $46 million to USADF to invest in relatively small agricultural projects and energy infrastructure projects among other economic development initiatives in 22 African countries.

In court filings, USADF describes staff from DOGE demanding access to their systems, which staff denied citing privacy and security requirements. They also said DOGE emailed USADF’s staff last month announcing that Pete Marocco, the deputy administrator of USAID who has overseen its dismantling, would chair USADF’s board.

Marocco and some of the same DOGE staff have succeeded in shuttering another independent agency, the Inter-American Foundation. On Feb. 28, a White House official told IAF staff that Marocco would chair the agency’s board, according to a letter sent to Congress by Eddy Arriola, the chair of IAF’s board.

The same day, Marocco held an emergency board meeting outside of IAF’s offices because he was not able to gain entry to the building. In notes entered into the Federal Register, Marocco said he designated himself the acting CEO and president of IAF, seemingly firing the sitting president.

Since, IAF’s grants and contracts have been cancelled and most of its 37 staff members have been laid off. In 2024, IAF oversaw almost $350 million in investments in Latin American and the Caribbean, with a little more than half of that coming from outside funds, meaning from countries or private funders.

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THALIA BEATY

Beaty reports on philanthropy for The Associated Press and is based in New York.