Washington — A federal court refused on Wednesday to stop the White House Department of Government Efficiency’s plans to take over the United States Institute of Peace while a legal challenge to President Trump’s activities against the nonprofit institution proceeds.
U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell moved quickly to decide whether to overturn the dismissal of some board members, only days after several of them received an email from the White House Presidential Personnel Office advising them of their termination. She was also directed to prevent DOGE workers from using Institute of Peace premises.
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 challenging their firing and what they called a “unlawful assault” on the Institute of Peace, which Congress established in 1984.
In addition to the board members, the institute’s president, George Moose, was dismissed by ex officio board members Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Vice Admiral Peter Garvin. Kenneth Jackson was then appointed as interim president of the Institute of Peace.
Howell claimed that “none of the requirements for the removal of a board member were met” in this instance, and that even if she did restore them, their authority would be “very limited” due to the president’s influence over the agency during the reinstatement period.
In dismissing the former board members’ request for relief, Howell said that it is “undisputed” that their removals violated federal law, but that they did not make the sufficient evidence for a temporary restraining order.
Nonetheless, Howell had strong words for DOGE and Trump administration officials over their treatment of Institute of Peace staff, especially 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” assigned to do, she added.
The battle over the Institute of Peace became public earlier this week when DOGE team members sought to get entry to the organization’s Washington, D.C., headquarters. The institution claimed in a statement Saturday that six DOGE members came at its facility “unannounced” on Friday, escorted by two FBI agents.
The institute’s outside counsel, George Foote, met with the authorities and told them of the organization’s “private and independent status as a non-executive branch agency,” according to the statement. The DOGE officials then departed, the agency said.
But on Monday, Moose, the institute’s expelled president, stated in a statement that DOGE had “broken” into the premises and gained entry via an employee of the Institute of Peace’s former security contractor, Inter-Con Security Systems, according to court records.
According to the documents, Foote, the outside attorney, informed the Inter-Con workers that they were trespassing and reported their entrance to the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department.
The institute board members stated 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 requested that Howell grant a temporary restraining order prohibiting Jackson, Trump administration officials, and DOGE personnel from accessing the Institute of Peace’s premises, computer systems, or data. They also requested an order declaring their removal illegal and invalid, as well as an injunction against their dismissal.
During the hearing on Wednesday, Howell raised concern on many occasions regarding the presence of police enforcement alongside DOGE workers.
“The defendants have not wasted any time bringing in armed law enforcement to help them,” she added of the purported building takeover.
She repeated her claim 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 have gone to the GOP-led Congress to change the law establishing the Institute of Peace or used his appointment power to remove and replace board members “rather than taking apart the institute” with police.
What are the legal options to take action against the Institute of Peace “without using the force of guns and threats by DOGE,” she inquired.
The Institute of Peace is the latest body to face examination from the Trump administration and DOGE as part of the president’s desire to reduce the size of the federal government. Many of these activities have now been challenged in federal courts as illegal.