In its latest attack on organizations involved in global aid work, the Trump administration ousted the majority of the board of the U.S. Institute of Peace and put its new leader into the Washington headquarters of the independent organization on Monday.
According to a document obtained by The Associated Press, President and CEO George Moose was sacked on Friday by the remaining three members of the group’s board, which included Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Peter Garvin, the president of National Defense University.
President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month that called for cuts to the agency, which Congress established more than 40 years ago, as well as others.
Despite objections that the institute is not a component of the executive branch, current USIP employees stated that employees from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency entered the facility. The police were outside the premises on Monday night when USIP called them.
USIP is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Congress that strives to promote good governance, end wars, and advance American principles in conflict resolution.
“What has happened here today is an illegal takeover by elements of the executive branch of a private nonprofit,” Moose declared, vowing to take legal action.
The headquarters of the institute, which sits across the street from the State Department, is not a government structure, he noted. “It was very clear that there was a desire on the part of the administration to dismantle a lot of what we call foreign assistance, and we are part of that family,” Moose told reporters after exiting the facility.
According to a senior U.S. Institute of Peace official, the DOGE employees were denied entry on Friday and succeeded in gaining in Monday after multiple failed attempts. Because of the delicate nature of the subject, the official spoke on condition of anonymity.
In an executive order issued on February 19, Trump singled out the group and a few others in an effort to reduce the size of the federal government. Since destroying the U.S. Agency for International Development and cutting other agencies, notably the Education Department, the administration has gone on to terminate and cancel programs at some of those organizations.
According to White House spokesman Anna Kelly, USIP was in “noncompliance” with Trump’s directive.
The remaining board members then named Kenneth Jackson as acting president, she added, after “11 board members were lawfully removed.” “Agencies cannot be held hostage by rogue bureaucrats. The President’s executive authority will be upheld by the Trump administration, and his agencies will continue to answer to the American people.
Jackson was spotted attempting to enter the nonprofit’s building earlier on Monday.
According to Moose, the group has been attempting to clarify its autonomous status with DOGE since last month. “I can’t imagine how our work could align more perfectly with the goals that he has outlined: keeping us out of foreign wars, resolving conflicts before they drag us into those kinds of conflicts,” he added in reference to Trump.
Lawyers, claiming that the institute’s standing shielded it from the type of reform taking place in other federal agencies, rejected DOGE’s weeks-long interest in the institution.
DOGE stated in a statement that day that its members, along by two FBI agents, arrived on Friday but left after being informed of USIP’s “private and independent status” by the institute’s attorney.
Police assisted DOGE members in entering the facility on Monday, according to Chief of Security Colin O’Brien, and the organization’s private security personnel had their contract terminated.
As a “independent nonprofit corporation,” the organization claims that it was established by Congress in 1984 and does not satisfy the definitions of “government corporation,” “government-controlled corporation,” or “independent establishment” found in the U.S. Code.
The Presidio Trust, which manages a national park property adjacent to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, the Inter-American Foundation, a federal organization that makes investments in Latin America and the Caribbean, and the U.S. African Development Foundation, a federal organization that funds small businesses in Africa, were also mentioned in Trump’s executive order.
Following legal action by the African Development Foundation, which similarly failed to prevent DOGE employees from accessing its offices in Washington, a federal judge decided last week that it would be lawful to remove the majority of grants and employees. On Monday, the president of the Inter-American Foundation filed a lawsuit to stop the Trump administration from firing her in February.