Washington — A federal judge on Wednesday declined to block the White House Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts to take over the U.S. Institute of Peace while a legal challenge to President Trump’s actions targeting the nonprofit organization moves forward.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell swiftly moved to consider whether to void the removal of several board members just days after some of them received an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office informing them that they had been terminated. She was also asked to block staff with DOGE from having access to the Institute of Peace facilities.
Howell, who sits on the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., convened a hearing Wednesday afternoon after five of the removed board members — Ambassador John Sullivan, Judy Ansley, Joseph Falk, Kerry Kennedy and Mary Swig — filed a lawsuit Tuesday that challenged their firing and what they said was an “unlawful assault” on the Institute of Peace, which was established by Congress in 1984.
In addition to the board members, the institute’s president, George Moose, was also fired by ex officio board members, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice Admiral Peter Garvin. Kenneth Jackson was then installed as the acting president of the Institute of Peace.
Howell said that “none of the requirements for removal of a board member were met” in this case, and added that even if she did reinstate them, because of the president’s control over the agency, their power during the period when they were reinstated would be “very limited.”
In denying the former board members’ request for relief, Howell said it is “undisputed” that they were not removed in accordance with federal law, but found that they had not made the required showing for a temporary restraining order.
Still, Howell had harsh words for DOGE and Trump administration officials’ treatment of Institute of Peace employees, including Moose.
“I am very offended by how DOGE has operated at the institute and treated American citizens trying to do a job that they were” tasked to do, she said.
The dispute over the Institute of Peace burst into public view earlier this week when DOGE team members attempted to gain access to the entity’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. The institute said in a statement Saturday that several DOGE members arrived at its building “unannounced” on Friday and were accompanied by two FBI agents.
The officials were met by the institute’s outside counsel, George Foote, who informed them of the organization’s “private and independent status as a non-executive branch agency,” according to the statement. The DOGE representatives then left, the agency said.
But on Monday, Moose, the institute’s removed president, said in a statement that DOGE had “broken” into the building and were able to gain access through an employee of the Institute of Peace’s former security contractor, Inter-Con Security Systems, according to court filings.
Foote, the outside counsel, told the Inter-Con employees they were trespassing and called the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department to report their entry, according to the filings.
The institute board members said in their lawsuit that Inter-Con and DOGE personnel “engaged in additional attempts to unlawfully access the USIP headquarters building, but were eventually able to enter the building, forcibly occupy it, and expel including the duly appointed USIP President, other USIP personnel, and outside counsel.”
The board members had asked Howell to issue a temporary restraining order blocking Jackson, Trump administration officials and DOGE employees from accessing the Institute of Peace’s facilities, computer systems or records. They also sought an order declaring their removal unlawful and void, and preventing their firing.
During the hearing Wednesday, Howell on numerous occasions expressed dismay about the presence of law enforcement alongside DOGE staff.
“The defendants have not wasted any time bringing in armed law enforcement to help them,” she said about the alleged takeover of the building.
She reiterated that she was “offended on behalf of the American citizens who have done so much … service to this country to be treated so abominably.”
During an exchange with a Justice Department lawyer, Howell questioned whether Mr. Trump could’ve gone to the GOP-led Congress to ask for the law establishing the Institute of Peace be changed or used his appointment power to remove and replace members of the board “rather than taking apart the institute” with police.
What are the lawful ways to act against Institute of Peace “without using the force of guns and threats by DOGE,” she asked.
The Institute of Peace is the latest organization to come under scrutiny by the Trump administration and DOGE as part of the president’s initiative to scale down the size of the federal government. Many of these actions have since been challenged in the federal courts as unlawful.
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