A judge denied the U.S. Institute of Peace’s request to block a takeover by the Department of Government Efficiency. File Photo by United States Institute of Peace/
Wikimedia CommonsMarch 20 (UPI) — A judge rejected a complaint filed by the U.S. Institute of Peace against a takeover by the Trump administration but questioned tactics used by the Department of Government Efficiency in the appropriation.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell, who presided over the hearing, declined to issue a temporary restraining order Wednesday, saying USIP was a “very complicated entity” with both qualities of non-governmental organizations and features of government agencies, such as having to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests.
However, Howell took issue with how DOGE conducted itself during the Monday incident at the USIP building, saying she was “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.”
Nonetheless, the judge ruled that as “the government believes it has acted in accordance with all laws,” as the 1984 legislation signed by then-President Ronald Reagan which created the USIP included a statement that noted the U.S. Institute of Peace Act, which created USIP, “is neither intended to, nor has the effect of, restricting the president’s constitutional power to remove those officers.”
Howell also noted that judges have had to work with little clarity in legal precedent when it comes to the president’s firing authority, and that these cases will ultimately be decided by the Supreme Court.
USIP’s suit stated that an “independent nonprofit corporation established by Congress” in the 1984 United States Institute of Peace Act, and that “Congress confirmed the Institute’s status as ‘an independent nonprofit corporation’ outside of the Executive branch throughout the USIP Act.”
President Donald Trump fired the corporation’s board under an executive order written in February that lists USIP among a group of “governmental entities,” that will be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, and such entities shall reduce the performance of their statutory functions and associated personnel to the minimum presence and function required by law.”
Trump then made Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President of the National Defense University Vice Admiral Peter A. Garvin board members, who in turn fired now-former president George Moose and installed current president Kenneth Jackson into the role.
The suit then purports that DOGE arrived Monday at USIP in “attacks” that “culminated in the literal trespass and takeover by force” by DOGE, who then entered the organization’s headquarters and “plundered” its offices “in an effort to access and gain control of the Institute’s infrastructure, including sensitive computer systems.”
USIP alleged the defendants of violating the U.S. Institute of Peace Act, and that their actions against USIP “exceed executive authority, usurp legislative authority conferred upon Congress by the Constitution, and violate the separation of powers.”
Under that supposition, USIP said the “firing of all of the Institute’s Board members who were presidentially appointed and confirmed by the Senate,” shouldn’t stand, and sought a temporary restraining order, or TRO, that would have restored the board members, including Moose, and establish that “Kenneth Jackson has not been lawfully appointed to any position within the Institute.”
