More questions than answers. That’s the only head-scratching conclusion I could come up with as I tried to think of a way to wrap up another dizzying week in Washington, D.C., where the battle between the Trump administration and the aid establishment rages on.

And the enmity is palpable. I’ll get into the latest legal and congressional drama in just a bit, but first, in the category of “you can’t make this stuff up,” Peter Marocco — U.S. President Donald Trump’s point person for taking a hatchet to USAID — was literally blocked from entering the office of the U.S. African Development Foundation in an apparent last stand by the tiny government agency.

On Wednesday, Marocco and a team from the Department of Government Efficiency were denied entry as USADF staffers huddled in the office out of sight — worried DOGE would seize access to the agency’s systems, fire staff, and cancel USADF’s contracts and grants.    

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