Gentlemen, You Can't Do An Armed Invasion Here! This Is The US Institute Of Peace!
It's a nonprofit, not an executive branch anything! All the more reason for Trump to want it gone.
A federal judge in Washington DC on Wednesday turned down a request by the US Institute of Peace to end the takeover of the Institute by Elon Musk’s DOGE goon squad. US District Judge Beryl Howell said that while she was “very offended by how DOGE has operated” in taking over the institute, and that Donald Trump’s abrupt Monday firing and replacement of USIP’s board didn’t follow the law, the complaint filed by ousted USIP board members was insufficient to justify a temporary restraining order reversing the takeover.
Howell said that the weird position of USIP as an independent nonprofit established by Congress, but with a board consisting of some executive branch officers and Senate-confirmed presidential appointees, made it unclear whether she could issue a restraining order.
Guess that’s how it goes in the Trump Era: You win some, you lose some democratic institutions. This is early going, however, and Howell, who oversaw the grand juries during the criminal investigations of Donald Trump during the Biden administration, doesn’t seem inclined to be friendly to the administration.
DOGE initially showed up, along with some FBI agents, at the USIP headquarters in Washington on Friday, but when asked to show a court order, the goons went away. Employees told Musk’s tech snots that USIP is an independent nonprofit and not part of the executive branch; its employees are not paid by the US government and its building is owned by the institute, not the government.
But on Monday, the DOGE snots were back, this time with a key, the FBI, and armed State Department police, and when USIP staff called the DC Metro Police, the cops instead showed up and helped DOGE remove the employees from the building, including the institute’s president, George Moose.
As it turns out, the DC Metro Police had already been contacted by Trump’s toady Ed Martin, the acting US attorney for DC, who informed the department that Moose was no longer the president of USIP, and had been replaced by Kenneth Jackson, a Trump administration official who’s also been helping dismantle the US Agency for International Development. Oops. Perfectly normal American scene under Trump.
Even though Howell declined to reverse the takeover, she had plenty of criticism for DOGE at yesterday’s hearing, saying that she was “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 at the institute.” But she added that the concerns she has about “how this has gone down is not one that can sway me in my consideration of the factors for a TRO, which is an emergency relief that is extraordinary.”
Howell questioned the need for all those cops with guns, asking, “That’s a lot of law enforcement at a charitable corporation building to enforce an executive order, wouldn’t you say?”
Howell thought it was all a little much, to say the least.
“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?”
Howell also criticized the government’s tactics in pressuring Inter-Con, the private security contractor that worked for USIP until Monday, when the institute got word of DOGE maneuvering to breach its systems and suspended the contract. The VP of Inter-Con told USIP’s head of security that “DOGE threatened to cancel every federal contract Inter-Con held if they did not come to the USIP building and let [new acting USIP president] Kenneth Jackson inside.” Yes, even though Inter-Con’s contract had been cancelled. Their badges had been deactivated, but one guy still had a key, and that’s how DOGE got into the building.
At the hearing, Howell was not happy about that, either, saying, “DOGE went to this terminated private security contractor and said, ‘Even though we don’t have a contract with you … let us in or we’re going to cancel all your other government business.’”
She asked DOJ lawyer Brian Hudak, “Are you the least bit offended with how this was executed, Mr. Hudak?” Hudak explained that since Trump had already fired the board and named a new president, Moose had essentially “barricaded” himself inside the building, so duh, of course he had to be removed.
Hudak also defended the shredding of the institute’s financial documents, which he said was merely “typical destruction of copies of other records,” as one does during an armed takeover of a nonprofit.
Democracy Docket explains what makes the institute such an odd duck, an independent nonprofit that nonetheless has a lot of connections to the US government:
Founded in 1984 under former President Ronald Reagan, the institute is a congressionally funded “independent nonprofit corporation” led by a bipartisan board of directors. The board must include the secretary of state, secretary of defense and president of the National Defense University, but the 12 remaining board members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The lawsuit argues that Trump acted illegally by illegally firing USIP board members and replacing them with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and a Navy admiral for some reason. Those three then voted to remove Moose and replace him with Jackson.
The complaint said that attacks on the institute “culminated in the literal trespass and takeover by force by Defendants, including representatives of DOGE, of the Institute’s headquarters building on Constitution Avenue.”
As justification for the move, the Trump administration argued that even though Congress created the USIP as an independent nonprofit in 1984, with clear rules on how board members can legally be removed, Ronald Reagan added a signing statement insisting that presidents could still shitcan board members for any reason at all, whenever they wanna, whatever Congress said, so there. (We are paraphrasing a little.)
Despite her decision that she couldn’t issue a restraining order based on the uncertainty over USIP’s status in the government, Howell did at least order expedited briefings in the case, and is worried about how far this crap may go:
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.
Hey, Heritage Foundation creep Kevin Roberts already told us that Trump would bring a “second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the Left allows it to be.” Not that he meant it literally, unless he did.
[ NBC News / Democracy Docket / WaPo (archive link) / The Hill /
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Sometimes the perfect headline just pops into my head as I'm starting to type "Rebecca, it's ready to read" in the Wonkette Sekrit Chatcave.
Much better than when it arrives an hour after the piece goes up.
THERES NO FIGHTING IN THE WAR ROOM!