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WASHINGTON — The United States Institute of Peace (USIP), an independent nonprofit agency established by Congress 40 years ago, asked a federal judge to immediately block the Department of Government Efficiency’s attempted to shut it down after what its lawsuit portrayed as a “takeover by force” of its headquarters building that took place with the assistance of the FBI, the Justice Department and local Washington police.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell sharply questioned the decision to have “armed law enforcement at the ready” to resolve a dispute over the agency at a hearing hours after the lawsuit was filed. Certainly, she said, there were ways to resolve the matter “without using the force of guns and threats by DOGE” against American citizens and those who have served the country for years.
“This conduct of using law enforcement, threatening criminal investigation, using armed law enforcement from three different agencies … why?” she asked. “Just because DOGE is in a rush?”
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Howell ultimately declined to issue a temporary restraining order to reinstate members of the board, saying USIP was a “very complicated entity” with qualities of non-governmental organizations but features of government agencies, like having to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests. Howell ordered an expedited briefing schedule and registered her dissent over the way DOGE handled the takeover.
“I am 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,” Howell said.
The lawsuit — which was brought by the Institute of Peace and members of the board and names acting USIP President Kenneth Jackson, assistant to the administrator for management and resources for the U.S. Agency for International Development; DOGE; Secretary of State Marco Rubio; and President Donald Trump, among others — contends that the Trump administration tried to unlawfully fire USIP President George Moose after it moved to fire board members and replace them with Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice Adm. Peter A. Garvin, who is president of the Pentagon’s National Defense University.
The suit says the “attacks culminated in the literal trespass and takeover by force by Defendants, including representatives of DOGE, of the Institute’s headquarters building on Constitution Avenue.”
The government responded in a filing Wednesday: “The Government believes it has acted in accordance with all laws and that Plaintiffs’ request for a temporary restraining order is unsupportable,” citing the legislation signed by President Ronald Reagan that created the Institute for Peace. “When President Reagan signed the Defense Authorization Act of 1985, which created the Institute, he included a signing statement noting: ‘The act establishes the United States Institute of Peace. I have been advised by the Attorney General that section 1706(f), relating to the President’s power to remove members of the Board of Directors of the Institute, is neither intended to, nor has the effect of, restricting the President’s constitutional power to remove those officers.'”
The lawsuit describes a dramatic standoff in which DOGE gained access to the headquarters building with the assistance of an employee for a private security company whose contract was dropped by USIP. “DOGE has broken into our building,” USIP acting President and CEO George Moose said in a statement during the standoff Monday.
The plaintiffs sought a temporary restraining order, with USIP lawyers writing that the defendants “blatantly violate the plain terms of the USIP Act,” which established the nonprofit agency in 1984. They continue: “Defendants have been and are at this minute engaged in conduct that will cause the Institute irreparable harm that will prevent the Institute from performing any of its lawful functions and is likely to utterly destroy it.”
Immediate intervention, the plaintiffs argued, “is appropriate to stop the ongoing destruction of the Institute’s physical and electronic property until the Court can further consider the merits.”
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said Tuesday that Trump “signed an executive order to reduce USIP to its statutory minimum” and that “11 board members were lawfully removed” before three board members appointed Jackson as acting president of the organization.
“Rogue bureaucrats will not be allowed to hold agencies hostage,” Kelly said. “The Trump administration will enforce the President’s executive authority and ensure his agencies remain accountable to the American people.”
The lawsuit is part of a growing collection of court actions brought by members of different independent agencies in response to attempted takeovers by the Trump administration. The administration has argued the actions are attempts to rein in “so-called independent agencies,” after Trump signed an executive order an order declaring that under Article II of the Constitution, all executive branch officials and employees fall under his supervision.
On Tuesday, Trump fired two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, both of whom said they plan to challenge their dismissals.
The judiciary is playing catch-up as the Trump administration takes aggressive actions to remake the federal government, including moves that could be difficult to reverse once a court makes a final judgment. On Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that the DOGE-led attempt to shut down USAID most “likely violated the United States Constitution in multiple ways.” The same day, amid a pending lawsuit over the fate of the U.S. African Development Foundation, employees received notices that they had been placed on administrative leave, according to a document reviewed by NBC News.
USIP, which has 414 employees and personal services contractors and seven field offices, is present in 26 countries. Its main building, which is owned by an independent nonprofit corporation, was constructed from “private gifts and contributions,” according to the suit.
USIP outside counsel told DOGE staffer members on March 9 that “unauthorized personnel would only be admitted with a valid warrant issued by a court,” according to the suit.
In a declaration, USIP Chief Security Officer Colin O’Brien said FBI Special Agent Doug Silk called him Sunday and said O’Brien was subject to an investigation by the Justice Department after DOGE was denied access to the USIP building Friday. O’Brien then informed Moose, the USIP president, and the USIP outside counsel, according to the declaration.
“I was worried when I got home I would be met by FBI agents and questioned,” O’Brien wrote. “I called my wife and instructed her to lock the doors at our home.”
On Monday, the Metropolitan Police Department said it was contacted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia — headed by longtime Trump supporter Ed Martin — and sided with Jackson, describing him in a statement as the “acting USIP President” rather than Moose.
O’Brien said that when police arrived at the building around 5:30 p.m. Monday, he allowed a police commander and a deputy captain into the building, as well as a patrol officer. When another officer arrived, that officer was allowed in but refused to close the door. Other officers came in, along with representatives of DOGE and Jackson.
“I was told by DC police officers to stay put and not move. I was physically blocked by a DC police officer from moving about the building,” O’Brien wrote. “I asked if I could retrieve my car keys and my car, and they said no.” O’Brien’s declaration in the lawsuit says he witnessed Washington police retrieve lock picking equipment.
During the hearing Wednesday, Howell pondered what would happen if she did block DOGE from the building, given that it resorted to using law enforcement so quickly.
“Is that just going to invite, like, an armed battle at the institute? Am I going to have to call in a mediator from abroad to help you out here?” she asked.
Howell, who during her time as chief judge of the federal district court in Washington oversaw the federal grand jury investigation into Trump, was often a thorn in the side of the Trump administration during his first term. She has spoken out about Trump’s pardoning of Capitol riot defendants, writing in January that she would not let stand the “revisionist myth relayed in this presidential pronouncement” of the pardons.
Ryan J. Reilly is a justice reporter for NBC News.
Gary Grumbach is a NBC News Legal Affairs Reporter, based in Washington, D.C.
Abigail Williams is a producer and reporter for NBC News covering the State Department.
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