The Department of Justice (DOJ) defended President Trump's rights on Tuesday, defending the right to dismantle two development organizations in the face of a lawsuit from the Inter-American Foundation (IAF).
The DOJ said through the special advisor's office that Trump has the right to remove board members and appoint new members without Senate advice and consent.
“If the law does not say otherwise, the president's responsibility to “respect that the law is faithfully executed” gives the incidental authority to designate a proxy officer who can temporarily maintain a cycle of constitutional oversight for the organizations he has created to carry out administrative functions,” the OLC wrote in its memo.
“The president needs time to appoint new board members through the advice and consent process, especially during the presidential transition season. He does not have to leave his leader during that time.”
Sarah Abiel, the IAF exiled head, said she was unfairly taken away as the foundation's president. The IAF lawsuit states that a newly appointed board member has declared its president, “we have terminated IAF staff, cut off grants and ordered the return of already undeniably mandatory funds.”
suit He said the action could represent the end of an organization responsible for funding efforts to combat poverty, migration and instability in Latin America and the Caribbean.
“If this court does not take action, the rest of the IAF, created by the act of Congress and maintained for the past 56 years, will soon be destroyed. This wholesale of the IAF by the government faces law,” the lawsuit states.
The lawsuit is handled by Peter Marrocco, a representative of the U.S. International Development Agency, and says it violates the requirement that IAF leaders be senators.
“Peter Marrocco visited the IAF office with the intention of calling an 'emergency meeting'.
“When he and the staff of Government Efficiency (“Doge”) found no one, Marrocco claimed to hold a board closure meeting. He himself monitored the Doge representatives and the empty IAF lobby and quickly set up himself as chairman of the IAF committee and acting president and CEO.
Trump targeted the IAF and similar institutions, including the US African Development Foundation and the US Institute of Peace, in an executive order on February 25, directing that “reduce statutory functions and related personnel performance to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
The US African Development Foundation has also appealed to Doge blocking access to the building, and similarly claims that Marrocco had inappropriately attempted to appoint itself as head of the organization.
