Overview

Takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace

The Physical Seizure

The Trump administration's move against USIP unfolded in two stages. First came the leadership purge: the president fired the bulk of the USIP board, after which the remaining members installed a new acting president. That remaining rump of ex-officio members — including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and National Defense University President Peter Garvin — ousted the institute's president, George Moose, and in his place appointed Kenneth Jackson, an administrator with the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The physical takeover followed almost immediately. DOGE staff tried multiple times to access the building before successfully getting in, partly with police assistance, even as the institute's lawyer told DOGE representatives multiple times that the executive branch has no authority over the nonprofit. In March 2025, DOGE personnel broke into USIP's headquarters using agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Metropolitan Police Department, and a leftover skeleton key held by USIP's former security contractor. Once inside, DOGE escorted USIP leadership from the building and then dismantled the institute, firing most of the staff, shutting down its international and domestic operations, and transferring its assets. The removal of USIP's president, his replacement by officials affiliated with DOGE, the termination of nearly all of USIP's staff, and the transfer of USIP property to the General Services Administration were all part of the administration's effort to effectively shutter the organization.

The Legal Claims at Stake

USIP's central legal argument was that the president lacked authority to remove its board members because the statute creating the institute contains explicit removal protections. The district court declared that President Trump's termination of USIP board members violated the statutory removal protections in 22 U.S.C. § 4605(f), and because those protections posed no constitutional problem, the terminations were null and void. The administration countered that USIP, despite its nonprofit charter, is sufficiently part of the executive branch that the president retains plenary removal power over its board. A Trump administration official argued that the ruling by the district court "affirms the President's clear authority to appoint and remove board members, ensuring that the U.S. Institute of Peace operates in alignment with executive directives."

A second lawsuit was filed separately. On April 10, 2025, lawyers filed suit on behalf of fired employees, contractors, and a donor to USIP to prevent the U.S. DOGE Service and the Trump administration from shuttering it. That parallel case, Pippenger v. U.S. DOGE Service, was related to U.S. Institute of Peace v. Jackson, also before Judge Howell, in which the official USIP board challenged its ouster.

Significance and Impact

USIP's significance to the broader DOGE campaign lies in what it represents structurally. It was not a conventional federal agency, and the administration's willingness to forcibly enter its building and replace its leadership signaled that the executive branch was prepared to challenge Congress's ability to create entities sheltered from presidential control. The legal action was the latest challenging the Trump administration's efforts to dismantle U.S. foreign assistance agencies, reduce the size of the federal government, and exert control over entities created by Congress.

The operational consequences were severe and immediate. After escorting USIP leadership from the building, DOGE fired most of the staff, shut down its international and domestic operations, and transferred its assets. Critics argued that the damage extended beyond the organization itself. USIP is America's premier peacebuilding organization, founded by Congress in 1984 to prevent and resolve violent conflict abroad; at a time of rising international violent conflict, USIP's dissolution hampers conflict prevention and signals that the United States does not support peace and security.

The case also became a focal point in a larger legal battle over independent agencies and congressional insulation from executive removal. The USIP matter intersected directly with the Supreme Court's willingness to revisit limits on presidential removal authority, giving it stakes well beyond a single nonprofit's survival.

Reactions and Debate

The administration's conduct drew criticism across institutional lines. U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell said she was offended by DOGE staff's use of threats and law enforcement to gain access to the USIP headquarters and to remove the institute's president, George Moose, from the building. Even as she initially declined to restore board members or bar DOGE from the premises, the Obama-appointed judge expressed disappointment in DOGE's use of armed law enforcement to enter the nonprofit's building.

Congressional opposition was swift. Representative Gregory W. Meeks, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, and Senator Jeanne Shaheen, Ranking Member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, characterized the action as "a hostile takeover of the U.S. Institute of Peace, a nonpartisan, independent nonprofit corporation established in law by Congress." The administration, for its part, framed the action as a legitimate exercise of executive accountability, with an official describing the effort as ridding the institute of what it called rogue bureaucrats and restoring alignment with presidential directives.

The competing arguments mapped onto a wider ideological fault line. Supporters of the administration's position held that no act of Congress can permanently insulate executive-branch officers from presidential control, particularly when federal appropriations underwrite the organization. Critics argued that USIP's hybrid nonprofit structure, its statutory independence, and its confirmed-board model were precisely the kind of deliberate design choices that separate it from the executive establishment, and that dismantling those features by force set a dangerous precedent for any congressionally created independent entity.

Outlook

The legal status of USIP remains unresolved as of mid-2026, and its ultimate disposition now depends substantially on the Supreme Court. The district court had ruled in USIP's favor in May 2025, declaring the board firings and subsequent actions null and void. The institute retook control of its headquarters two days after that ruling, with acting president George Moose entering the organization's headquarters with private security and outside counsel for the first time since being escorted off the premises during the DOGE takeover. That restoration proved temporary.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issued a stay in late June 2025, saying the Trump administration's appeal of Judge Howell's opinion would likely succeed on the merits, and a federal appeals court panel stayed the lower court ruling that had blocked the administration from moving forward with dismantling USIP. The D.C. Circuit said the president would likely suffer irreparable harm from not being able to fully execute his executive power over the institute's board, a decision that relied on a Supreme Court ruling that had allowed the president to fire two independent agency leaders as their lawsuits proceeded.

In October 2025, USIP moved for partial vacatur of the stay, arguing that holding the case in abeyance threatened irreparable harm to USIP's assets; the government opposed, and in November 2025, the D.C. Circuit denied the motion, holding that USIP had not demonstrated a sufficient change in circumstances. The case was held in abeyance pending a Supreme Court decision in Trump v. Slaughter, which was scheduled for oral argument in December 2025. The outcome of that case, and any Supreme Court guidance on the limits of statutory removal protections for officers of congressionally created independent entities, will likely determine whether USIP's original leadership can be restored and whether the dismantling of the institute's operations can be undone or must be accepted as a fait accompli. Whatever the courts ultimately decide, the episode has already demonstrated that DOGE-era executive action was willing to test the outer boundaries of presidential authority over entities that Congress deliberately placed at arm's length.