US Agency for International Development employees this week recounted the panic they experienced in the days after they were ordered to return from their assignments in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols, an appointee of President Donald Trump, dealt the administration a setback Friday in its dismantling of the agency, temporarily halting plans to pull all but a fraction of USAID staffers off the job worldwide.

ProPublica’s reporting provides new details about what legal risk officials were prepared to take and what laws they may have violated on their way to creating a “constitutional crisis.”