A federal judge on Wednesday declined to block the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) from controlling the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP), rejecting an emergency request from ousted board members seeking reinstatement.
The ruling dealt a blow to ousted USIP leadership, who argued their removal violated the USIP Act and the institute’s congressionally-funded status insulated them from executive intervention. While U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, an Obama-era appointee, declined to intervene, she said DOGE handled the takeover “abominably” given its cooperation with law enforcement — despite USIP staff, not DOGE staff, initially calling police to the scene Monday.
“I’m very offended by how DOGE has operated at the institute and treated American citizens trying to do a job that they were statutorily tasked to do at the institute,” Howell said during the hearing, Courthouse News Service first reported. No written or oral rulings have yet been publicly released.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday by former board members — excluding former USIP President George Moose — claims the White House illegally removed the institute’s leadership and asserts DOGE officials unlawfully seized USIP’s facilities. The Justice Department argued the Feb. 19 executive order inciting the transition fell well within the president’s constitutional authority and that former USIP leadership had no standing to challenge their removals.
Howell pressed DOJ attorneys on why DOGE cooperated with law enforcement officers instead of using a less confrontational transition process, despite the circumstances surrounding USIP’s refusal to comply, according to the outlet. Prior reporting by the Daily Caller News Foundation revealed USIP leadership actively sabotaged their own headquarters to obstruct the leadership transition, physically removing door locks and shutting down internet and phone systems.
“I mean, this conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigation, using armed law enforcement from three different agencies … to carry out the executive order … with all that targeting probably terrorizing employees at the institute when there are so many other lawful ways to accomplish the goals [of the executive order] … Why?” Howell said, according to ABC News. “Why those ways here — just because DOGE is in a rush?”
USIP officials also barricaded themselves on the fifth floor, lowered window shades to block visibility and instructed staff via fliers to treat DOGE officials as trespassers, escalating the situation to an extent where law enforcement intervention became unavoidable.
Despite her sympathies for the plaintiffs, she ultimately ruled they failed to demonstrate irreparable harm, a high legal bar, and rejected their motion for a temporary restraining order.
The case now moves to a broader legal fight over the Trump administration’s reorganization of federally funded entities, with USIP’s lawsuit standing as an early test of the White House’s authority to reshape federal institutions that receive virtually all of their funds from the government but claim operational independence.
USIP, established by Congress in 1984, claims its mission is to “prevent violent conflicts and broker peace deals abroad,” despite the U.S. having been involved in numerous military interventions, prolonged wars and rising global instability in the decades since. More recently, the institute requested $55,459,000 for its fiscal year 2025 budget to “promote global peace and security,” according to its website.
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