Fired U.S. Institute of Peace board members filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, claiming they were unlawfully terminated and that the government unlawfully intervened in the organization.
The plaintiffs requested a restraining order to block the Department of Government Efficiency takeover of USIP, but a federal judge denied the motion on Wednesday.
Despite being “offended” by DOGE’s treatment of USIP employees, the judge said there are problems with the lawsuit’s merits — namely, that President Donald Trump may indeed have the authority to overhaul the agency, as he did.
USIP was established by congressional action in 1984. Its board of members includes the secretaries of state and defense, the president of the National Defense University, and others appointed by the president and approved by the Senate. Last week, Trump fired most of the board, leaving the former three in place. Then, they voted to remove the agency’s president and install a new acting president.
In a lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Tuesday, five of the ousted board members are seeking “the immediate intervention of this Court to stop Defendants from completing the unlawful dismantling of the Institute and irreparably impairing Plaintiffs’ ability to perform their vital peace promotion and conflict resolution work as tasked by Congress.”
The plaintiffs are pursuing a declaration that their firings were not legal or valid and the reinstatement of ousted USIP President George Moose.
The lawsuit was filed a day after acting USIP President Kenneth Jackson and DOGE members were “escorted” into the building with assistance from Metropolitan Police Department officers after they had been denied entry.
MPD CALLED IN TO DEESCALATE USIP DISPUTE AFTER FORMER PRESIDENT ACCUSED DOGE OF BREAKING IN
In the court filing Tuesday, the fired USIP board members accused DOGE workers of trespassing and taking over the USIP’s Washington, D.C., headquarters and “plunder[ing] the offices in an effort to access and gain control of the Institute’s infrastructure, including sensitive computer systems.”
The case has been assigned to Judge Beryl Howell, who was appointed to the federal court by former President Barack Obama and previously ruled against the Trump administration in cases regarding an executive order canceling government contracts with a top Democratic-linked law firm and the firing of a member of the National Labor Relations Board.
