About 30 employees were inside the USADF building at the time, according to the official. The employees were expecting to spend the workday completing their performance evaluations and connecting with farmers and field staff overseas to explain why their funding had suddenly halted.
Then, a security officer at the front desk called.
There were two men in the building who claimed they were USADF staff and needed access to the building, but they did not have key cards. The officer asked the employees whether he should let the visitors upstairs, describing them as “very young men” with backpacks, the official said.
Democrats have argued that DOGE — which stands for Department of Government Efficiency — lacks the authority to dissolve USADF, noting its status as “a statutorily authorized independent entity” supported by repeated bipartisan appropriations, and that any attempt to eliminate it violates federal law and exceeds the constitutional limits of executive authority.
A similar incident occurred this week at the Inter-American Foundation (IAF), a sister organization also chartered by Congress in 1969. Marocco and other DOGE subordinates entered that agency’s headquarters Monday and demanded access to IAF data and the names of the organization’s grantees. Within 48 hours, staff received a “reduction in force” memo notifying them that they would be placed on administrative leave.
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