Members of Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) unit were barred from entering a small, independent federal agency promoting economic development in Africa on Wednesday after a tense standoff with federal staff they had been sent to fire.
Workers at the US African Development Foundation (USADF), which Donald Trump has ordered to be closed, refused to allow Doge operatives to enter after they arrived at its Washington headquarters on Wednesday afternoon. But the Doge team returned on Thursday, accompanied by agents with the US Marshals Service and Peter Marocco, the acting director of the now-shuttered US Agency for International Development, according to a government official familiar with the situation. This time, they were able to gain access to the building, the official said, and no staff was present.
Scores of legal challenges have been lodged against the sweeping project to upend the government bureaucracy, producing a spate of court rulings declaring the halting of aid illegal and ordering the reinstatement of fired federal workers.
Israel's ongoing blockade of humanitarian assistance for Gaza forced a leading aid group to shut its...
